Using @IFTTT For Better School Communications

Recently, I was talking with a few school administrators on how they could better communicate with their parents and the community. One obstacle that many schools and districts face is figuring out the most effective ways to ensure all are well informed and have all the information. Traditionally, notes home in a Wednesday Packet or using a website have been used. However, it seems that life sometimes gets in the way of these traditionally methods being effective. In my conversation with these leaders we talked about the struggles they have and how non-traditional means could be used to reach larger parts of their communities. 

Now we have to remember, communications is more than just information. Sure, the upcoming athletics schedule or after-school meeting times are important. But equally important are the stories that are told through the learning that happens everyday in every school building everywhere. There are usually many great things that deserve to be told each day. Those stories can be powerful and go a long way in building support with the community. 

I've been an advocate for the school leaders to be a walking PR Machine for their schools for a while now. Mobile devices we can carry in our pockets are powerful. They can take pictures, record video and audio. And combine that with access to the Internet, those can be shared across the globe in an instant. So during a walkthrough or just on a stroll through the building, its easy to capture, tell and share those stories. 

In my conversation with the school administrators on sticking point keep coming up over and over again. While there are many great places to share these stories, it takes so much time to post them to all the various places. Sharing a tweet on Twitter, and a post on Facebook and a post on Instragram and a brief story on Tumblr and on and on and on, it can be overwhelming or too much to keep up with. 

Enter IFTTT

If This, Then That. 

If you've heard me before I've professed my love for all things IFTTT. The premiss is that when you do something (take a picture, post somewhere, etc.) then something else happens somewhere else. For example, a recipe I use all the time is if a picture of me that I am tagged in on Facebook is posted there, then that picture is automatically saved to a folder in my Dropbox. I set up the recipe one time and IFTTT does the heavy lifting for me after that. There are recipes for all sorts of things. Weather, data, blog posts, controlling your lights, if you can think of something you want to happen when you do something there is probably a recipe for it. 

So my love of IFTTT got me thinking. 

If the barrier to using these means of communication is not being able to keep up with them all, then IFTTT could be the answer. You set things up one time and done. 

Some recipes to try:

• RSS to Twitter-Automatically take blog posts or website updates and have them posted to Twitter.
• Post Instagram Photos to Twitter as Native Photos-One of the problems with posting Instagram photos to Twitter is they appear at links. This recipe will turn those links in to full photos. 
• Post Facebook Status To Twitter-Update your Facebook status? This recipe will auto-post it to Twitter. 
• Wish People Happy Birthday on Facebook-Have staff or student birthdays in Google Calendar? This recipe will wish them Happy Birthday on your school Facebook page. 

And now with their new DO App, its even easier. 

The DO App automates the process even more by taking a lot of the guess work out things. Designed for photos and notes, the DO will will make it that much easier and frankly remove any excuse you have for sharing. 

So after some time setting things up and talking about what stories to tell and how often, these school leaders were ready to share with their communities all the great things that were happening behind their walls. 

What about you? How do you make the sharing process easier in your building? What tools are you using? Leave your thoughts below. 

Making Curation Easier With @IFTTT

There is simply no end to the flow of information available on the Internet. When it comes to trying to organize it and do something with it you may run into some challenges. I know I regularly am looking for ways to make that process better. 

Thank goodness for IFTTT. 

I've written about If This, Than That (IFTTT) in the past. Of the many tools I rely on each day, IFTTT that is one that I can't live without. It's so simple to use but so powerful too. 

If you need a refresher, IFTTT is sorta like coding. If something happens here, than something happens there. The "something" could be an action on the internet, an action you take in your email or something else. Since I last wrote about IFTTT the catalog of apps that work with the service has grown and you really can do a great deal with it. 

Where I think IFTTT that really shines is it's ability to curate information and organize the curation process. By setting up recipes to automatically send information to specific places, locate new information or more quickly organize that information can lead to better curation. 

There are some recipes you'll want to check out to make your curation of resources easier and more organized: 

Twitter Favorites To Evernote-If you are like me you are getting loads of great content and resources from Twitter. The dead simple way to make save the stuff you find there is to favorite those tweets. But the big flaw is if the tweet gets deleted, so does your favorite. Another flaw is you can't search them. You'll want to get those favorites out of Twitter to somewhere more user friendly. Using this recipe when you favorite something on Twitter the tweet and all it's contents get sent to a notebook you specify in Evernote. Once it's in Evernote, you can search it, tag it, do so much more with it. Not an Evernote user? Not to worry. You can send those favorites to a Google Spreadsheet. 

RSS To Email-I was a big fan of Google Reader before it shut down. Since then I've moved away from using an RSS reader and find most of my information on Twitter. But that doesn't mean RSS isn't still useful. With this recipe, using the RSS feed for any webpage, you can have new content sent to your email as it happens. While you probably wouldn't want to use it on content that changes constantly, you could set up a search for a particular type of content or news event and when new items were added you'll get an email. This is great for kids doing real-time research on events happening now. Email not your thing? You can save those RSS items to Pocket too. 

Weather To Anything-As as science teacher I am all about data. And having practical, real-life data for my students was always better than made up data from the textbook. Weather was always a great source for data. There are loads of weather recipes to use. Sending the weather to spreadsheets or getting notified when there is rain. These can be really helpful for capturing easy data. 

Fitbit To Anything-Using a Fitbit is an easy way to keep track of fitness goals. Many of my PE friends are using them to help their kids stay aware of how active they are and how they can improve their fitness. IFTTT has several recipes to get that data out of Fitbit so you can do something with it. Send it to a spreadsheet, Evernote or somewhere else so you it could be analyzed or manipulated. 

Something new is Collections. These are sets of recipes pre-made that instantly give you lots of options. One of the best is Recipes for Following The News that has all the necessary recipes for doing just that. Again, great for keeping up with real-time events. 

Those are just a few of the simple ways you can leverage IFTTT to curate, find and work with content from across the Internet. What are some ways you are using IFTTT to do the same? Leave a comment below. 

Summer Learning Series-Putting The Internet To Work For You With IFTTT

This is the ninth post in my Summer Learning Series. These are short posts with tools, tips and resources for you to try something new this summer or something you can take to the classroom in the Fall. First was Collaborative Learning With Edmodo and then we followed up with Learning With Hashtags. Then we looked at TED Talks. We moved on to Twitter chats. Then our last post looked at some pretty neat things you can do with YouTube. Then we  took a look at Diigo and how to curate the information you are finding this summer. Then we examined the things to consider if you want to use Twitter in your classroom or your school in the coming school year.  In the last post we examined  a tool I can't live without, Evernote. Now let see how we can automate the internet and take many of the tools in the Summer Learning Series to the next level with If This, Then That. 

Let's face it. The easier and more automated I can make certain things I do, the better off I am. While I haven't perfected my "Get Out Of Bed, Dress Me, Make Me Bacon" machine...yet, I have found a site that puts the power of the Internet to work for me.

If This, Than That (or IFTTT) is a powerful website where you set up triggers and recipes to do tasks for you. You connect IFTTT to your favorite web tools like Twitter, Facebook, Pocket, Foursquare, etc and set up statements that if this happens, than that should happen.

It starts with the If This:

Here, you decide if something happens. Maybe you check in on Foursquare, take a picture with Instagram, an RSS feee is updated, you get an email, the list goes on and on and on.

I am going to create one for the weather. There are all sorts of triggers for every tool. For the weather it is things like sunrise, if it is going to rain, if the temperature is rising or falling, etc. For this example I picked when the current condition changes to rain.

Then you decide what should happen:

Now you have several options, some of which make sense, like triggering an email or sending a text, while others don't make much sense like updating your Facebook status or sending an update via RSS. You can make some interesting combinations.

Once set up,  you are good to go. You sit back and wait for the triggers to fire and see what happens.

I have several recipes I use. One takes my favorites from Twitter and sends them to a notebook in Evernote. Another copies the pictures I take on Instagram and Facebook and sends them to folders in Dropbox. A favorite is a daily email of all the free books available from Amazon on the Kindle. There literally 1000's of combinations.

I use a bunch of these. The weather trigger is one of my favorites. Every morning I get a text that tells me what the weather is like and will be like for the day. I also use the Twitter favorites to Evernote recipe to save my favorites. Another Twitter one I use is every time I create a Bit.ly link (either in Twitter or outside of Twitter) it gets backed up to a Google Doc with the date and title of the link. I also back up my pictures shared on Instagram and Facebook to Dropbox and more. There are tons of uses that you can really do a lot with.

One of the best parts of IFTTT is the sharing. You can share your recipes you create with the world and use those created by others. The gallery there is a great place to start as newbie because the work is done for you. Then you can experiment with creating your own.

So be like me. Let the Internet do the heavy lifting for you and check out If This, Then That.

Do you use IFTT? Have a favorite recipe you use? Share it below!

Put The Internet To Work For You

Let's face it. The easier and more automated I can make certain things I do, the better off I am. While I haven't perfected my "Get Out Of Bed, Dress Me, Make Me Bacon" machine...yet, I have found a site that puts the power of the Internet to work for me.

If This, Than That (or IFTTT) is a powerful website where you set up triggers and recipes to do tasks for you. You connect IFTTT to your favorite web tools like Twitter, Facebook, Pocket, Foursquare, etc and set up statements that if this happens, than that should happen.

It starts with the If This:

Here, you decide if something happens. Maybe you check in on Foursquare, take a picture with Instagram, an RSS feee is updated, you get an email, the list goes on and on and on.

I am going to create one for the weather. There are all sorts of triggers for every tool. For the weather it is things like sunrise, if it is going to rain, if the temperature is rising or falling, etc. For this example I picked when the current condition changes to rain.

Then you decide what should happen:

Now you have several options, some of which make sense, like triggering an email or sending a text, while others don't make much sense like updating your Facebook status or sending an update via RSS. You can make some interesting combinations.

Once set up,  you are good to go. You sit back and wait for the triggers to fire and see what happens.

I have several recipes I use. One takes my favorites from Twitter and sends them to a notebook in Evernote. Another copies the pictures I take on Instagram and Facebook and sends them to folders in Dropbox. A favorite is a daily email of all the free books available from Amazon on the Kindle. There literally 1000's of combinations.

One of the best parts of IFTTT is the sharing. You can share you recipes you create with the world and use those created by others. The gallery there is a great place to start as newbie because the work is done for you. Then you can experiment with creating your own.

So be like me. Let the Internet do the heavy lifting for you and check out If This, Then That.

Do you use IFTT? Have a favorite recipe you use? Share it below!