Open offer to Franklin's candidates for election

To the candidates for Franklin's election on November 3, 2009:

I extend an offer to conduct and post an interview with you here. The interview can be either text or audio.

You are running to conduct business on behalf of Franklin. Together, we can share your views, your objectives, and help to spread the word to create an informed voter.

Send me an email (shersteve at gmail dot com) and we can arrange a mutually convenient time.

Be aware that this is my public service effort conducted solely to create an informed electorate here in Franklin.

I do this for fun and education. If it stops being that way, I will stop. This is not an advertising site. This is an information sharing site.

My disclosure statement can be found here.

A similar offer was made for the last Town election in 2007.

"update the Web site and get the word out immediately"

By Aaron Wasserman/Daily News staff

GHS

Posted Apr 19, 2009 @ 12:02 AM

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Tuesday morning, when an accident on Interstate 495 delayed rush-hour traffic in Franklin, Gary Premo logged on to Twitter, to write an update. The 540 people following Franklin Police on the social networking Web site knew immediately to take a detour.

"I think it gets information out in real time, especially with accidents. People might be heading into work and will get the 'tweet,' and think, Oh, avoid (Rte.) 140," said Premo, Franklin Police's communications director.

Amid the marketing, news reports, organizing and general ephemera that comes when millions of users write about their sandwiches and trips to the mall are a growing number of public officials who are "tweeting," as updates are known in Twitter parlance, about what they do.

Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here

Read a related article by the Boston Globe here

You can learn more about Twitter here

You can sign up for Twitter here

You can follow the Franklin Police here

You can follow me here

Feeley responds to McGann (audio)

From the Franklin Town Council meeting 5/7/08, you may recall that Councilor Joe McGann used the Citizens Comment section to complain about his not getting notified of the 4/30/07 meeting starting at 6:00 PM instead of 7:00 PM.

Due to the protocol around Citizens Comment, Feeley could not respond at that time and waited until Councilor Comments (at the end of the meeting) to make his response.

Time: 1 minute, 42 seconds



MP3 File

Twitter - a teaching learning tool

From Nottinghamshire (yes, Robin Hood country) Tom Barrett teaches and writes a blog. This post goes into great detail on how he uses Twitter as a teaching and learning tool.

In my experience, and in the short time that I have used it, Twitter has grown quickly to play a major part in the way that I interact with fellow colleagues and professionals from around the world. In my classroom and with the children I teach it has been an exciting tool to utilise and support learning. However it is one of many tools that we have at our disposal. I do not see it replacing any of the others we use nor do I see the positive impact upon learning being exclusive to Twitter.

Read the full posting here.

Cruise around Tom's site. He has video tutorials. He has some wikis.

Do you twitter?

Sign up for Connect-CTY!

The Town of Franklin has partnered with Connect-CTY to provide a means of communicating emergency and urgent messages to the residents and businesses in Town

What is the Connect-CTY service?

The Connect-CTY service allows authorized civic leaders to create and rapidly disseminate time-sensitive messages to every telephone number stored in the notification database. With the Connect-CTY service, authorized users can send thousands of messages in minutes. Only authorized officials are allowed access to the system.

How does the service work?

Authorized officials record a voice message that is then delivered quickly to individual phones in the notification database.

What types of messages will be sent using the service?

Any message regarding the safety or welfare of our community would be disseminated using the Connect-CTY service.

Examples would include severe weather warnings and updates, hazardous traffic or road conditions inside the town or affecting local routes, and any other situation that could impact the safety, property, or welfare of our citizens.

Is my telephone number included in the notification database?

It is our intention and hope that every residence and commercial facility in our community be included in the notification database. For businesses, we only store one main phone number. For residents, we may have more than one number that belongs to you in the database. Additionally, you may request to have a secondary number be entered into our database for priority calling.

May I use a cell phone as my notification database listing?

Yes, we can accept cell phones as secondary phone numbers in the database and encourage you to request that your number be included.

The program will be activated within the next few weeks. Please watch for additional information in the local daily newspapers. You can also email Gary Premo, Communications Director for the Franklin Police Department, gpremo@franklinpolice.com.

You can also sign up directly by following this link.