Although most schools seem to struggle with students’ phone-usage during class hours, Prince of Wales Secondary in Vancouver is trying to use it to their advantage.
The school began using popular social media tool Snapchat two weeks ago, as an attempt to communicate more easily with students.
Snapchat is a video messaging application where users can record videos and take pictures and send them to their friends. Snaps cannot be longer than 10 seconds, making the delivery quick, and once the message has been viewed, it’s deleted forever.
“We started Snapchat about two weeks ago and what we do is we just take a picture of our bulletin and send it out on Snapchat so that it actually arrives in everyone’s smartphone,” said David Derpak, the school’s principal. “You know we use a PA, a public address system, and the public address system was invented in 1915 during WWI.”
When asked why Snapchat and not other social media tools available, Derpak said they liked how the app takes away the opportunity to respond, keeping the conversation one-way and avoiding any problems with comments.
Their goal is to make the bulletin more alive and vibrant. In the future Derpak said they hope to send Snapchats of the games or school dances to share with students.
“Like any organization, we want to be able to communicate well and communicate effectively.”
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