Student Perspective Update

    With a better perspective of why students should invest their time in the SMLP after the first cycle of classes, second cycle research primarily analyzed social data produced by the first students to involve themselves. Overwhelmingly, this took the form of tweets in relation to the @Medford_High account. Early observations confirm that students are actively involved in the Twitter-verse and engaging in an academic relationship with them has potential. This is not without concern as data analysis uncovered issues with both transparency and generating an audience. Ideally, this will be resolved when meetings with specialized student groups contribute to the school's social media profile. 
    Research up to this point has focused primarily on the Twitter account because of bureaucratic issues with establishing the Facebook page. These should be resolved soon and further information on my interaction with Facebook's Page Operations Team may be inquired using the comment section. This issue has not been a concern because Medford High's student body is much more invested in Twitter.
    As of this post time, the @Medford_High account has eighteen student followers, one faculty follower, and two alumni followers. After eleven in-class presentations I was hoping for a larger sample size but from this data some conclusions can be drawn. Student use over these two weeks varies dramatically with some followers inactive and some tweeting more than thirty-five posts per day. This demonstrates how keeping up with all student activity is unreasonable to maintain as even the small sample size generates too many posts for one person to view completely. From the account's own perspective, six outgoing tweets were viewed by all followers and reciprocated two interactions. Again, I had expected more results but these low numbers are not discouraging. Student reception in the classroom suggests an audience is there, with the big question being what may spur academic discourse.
    Outside the numbers, there are also ideological concerns. I assumed in the beginning that students would not like Medford High to follow their personal accounts for privacy reasons. This would have been fine as long as they followed the MHS account themselves. Surprisingly, students quickly made me aware that in order to have followers, the @Medford_High account must follow-back, which opens up access to their non-academic posts. Etiquette like this is great for promoting transparency but the illicit nature of their day-to-day activity, at least by a small percentage of students, causes concern. It is outside the program's purview to react when students post questionable content that does not interact specifically with the school account. On the other hand, the worst case scenario of a student post requiring immediate intervention is a very real threat to what will hopefully remain amicable interactions between students and the program.
    A mission for the next cycle will be to speak with more specialized student groups who share a common connection in social media. The MHS Mantra is an active blog for student reporting and the school's yearbook club has more material resources than they know what to do with. Hopefully students can see the incentives in using Twitter and Facebook platforms as a tool to promote their hard work.