Five ways colleges can use digital technology to improve communication

Marketing and promotion: Digital marketing is an essential tool for colleges when it comes to attracting students. A strongly branded website that is easy to navigate is crucial; it is often the first impression a prospective student will have of your college.

Social media campaigns on platforms like Facebook are effective ways of driving traffic to your website and we have also invested in pay-per-click services. This is a form of online advertising that can generate additional web traffic – our marketing department is using the service to recruit students on to particular courses.

Google analytics is a great tool for examining how people are viewing and using your site. By accessing this data, with a particular focus on the landing page, you can immediately see which pages are receiving the most hits, and more importantly, those that are not working for you.

Student learning: Browser-based technologies such as Google apps and Google+ communities are powerful tools for enabling staff and students to collaborate with one another. They provide a seamless learning environment that extends education beyond the classroom, allowing tutors to share information and feedback at all times.

At the college we have an online portal and one of the platforms that has worked well is Padlet. It works like an online sheet of paper where staff can add content from any device, at any time – information can be added in the form of images, videos, documents and text.

Engaging staff and students: Alongside Google apps, platforms including Smore, VideoScribe, Piktocart and Popplet are great ways to communicate with people across the college's community – from creating an online wall for posting feedback during an event to sending out promotional flyers.

Google apps and Google+ communities, as well as social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, also provide an effective way of sharing college news and delivering messages.

Customer relations and recruitment: Customer relationship management systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics, are great tools for managing relationships with students from the point of enrolment to their final certification.

Developing a mobile version of the website is also a good way to boost the recruitment of students, as today many young people have access to a smartphone or mobile device. Targeting young people via this technology means they will be able to find out about a course and enrol no matter where they are.

Staff development: The intranet and Google apps are a good way to encourage staff at all levels to take ownership of their training and development, as it gives them an easily accessible place to share resources and ideas with colleagues. For this to work effectively, however, it is important for staff to feel comfortable experimenting with technology. One of the ways we do this is by encouraging our teams to work with industry partners to help them really understand how technology is evolving in the workplace.

Cheryl Pennington is the assistant principal for teaching and learning at Reading College, which is part of Activate Learning.

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