School Name: Aurora Public Schools
Location: Aurora, Nebraska
How many students are enrolled at your school? About 1200 (K-12).
School Social Media Profiles:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
For this school spotlight, we interviewed Craig Badura. Craig is the K-12 Technology Coach at Aurora Public Schools. Follow him on Twitter @MrBadura.
Can’t be more proud of our #aurorahuskies Social Media Managers!
We’re improving each day at creating content for our school Twitter/Instagram. Watching students create then schedule using @classintercom makes me happy!
Sometimes we just need to get out of the way. pic.twitter.com/y9sGV3e0Zo
— Ｃｒａｉｇ Ｂａｄｕｒａ (@mrbadura) September 16, 2019
Here’s our Q & A with Craig Badura:
1. What’s an interesting fact about you? I have been Captain for Team Nebraska for the last two years in the Kansas Nebraska Cup. It’s a Ryder Cup format over two days pitting the top 8 junior golfers in Nebraska vs the top 8 from Kansas. We won the cup back last year after a 9-year drought and successfully retained the cup this year at Omaha Country Club.
2. What’s your favorite social media platform and why? I can’t say that I have a favorite platform right now. I really enjoy using both Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is mostly professional EDU stuff, while Instagram is a bit more of my personal side and passions.
3. How long have you been in your position? I have been the K-12 Technology Coach at Aurora Public Schools for 8 years. Prior to that, I was the “Guybrarian” at York Elementary School in York, Nebraska. I started my career teaching social studies at Centura Public School in Cairo, Nebraska.
4. What problem has Class Intercom helped you solve? We used to turn our school Twitter account over on Friday’s to a senior student. The student had to come to me in the morning, I’d log into our district Twitter account and they could tweet and share during the day. At the end of the day, I would have to track down that student so I could sign them out of the district Twitter account. It wasn’t efficient at all.
Now, Class Intercom allows me the opportunity to give SEVEN students the ability to create and post content to not only our district Twitter account but Instagram as well. It has been great for scheduling content as well. We have a content calendar that has all of the weekly activities coming up and it’s fun to watch our social media managers come into seminar class (35 minutes) and immediately look at the content calendar and begin the process of creating graphics for upcoming activities, then scheduling them. I simply check my Class Intercom notification that I get in my email once a student submits a tweet, proof it and approves! Easy!
5. How are you using Class Intercom at your school? I’ve taught our social media managers how to schedule their content within Class Intercom. It’s been such a great tool for me to use when it comes to creating a brand of consistency with our social media. Once the students figured it out, it’s been fun seeing how they learn and grow each day.
6. Do you involve students in social media creation? Of course! I don’t create any of our graphics, and can’t imagine having the time to do so! This is a great way to utilize our students and to teach them how to create effective and engaging content. We use Canva for our graphics and collaborate with our journalism department to get high-quality images for our graphics. Our goal is to have a consistent look across our social media platforms, so we’ve decided to use a certain font (Norwester) and brand color (#B50025). This is used in all of our graphics on Instagram and Twitter.
Next on our list is working on creating a design sheet that will contain all of the essential information that would be needed by our future social media managers. The design sheet will include tips and tricks on using Class Intercom and our essential brand colors and fonts.
We’ve started something new this year as well with our district Twitter account. We are going to have 3 days per week that are themed days. We have started Pie Face Showdown on Fridays. The Pie Face Showdown game pits two teachers against each other. Our team thought it would be a fun way to share the lighter side of our staff members!
7. Do you have any social media posts that you or your students have created that you consider successful?
