7 Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom

Terry's Teaching Tidbits: Social Media in the Classroom I’m in my 9th year of teaching and one thing that I’ve learned each year is just how much each year is absolutely nothing like the last. There’s no such thing as taking out “last year’s plans”, changing the date and coasting through the year. Education evolves constantly and I find it imperative for teachers to try and evolve with it. This year I’ve made it a goal of mine to try new things in the classroom. In years past, I’ve had a hard time keeping up with communication. Periscope I first heard of Periscope this summer at the Teachers Pay Teachers conference in Vegas. Over the last 2 months, I have been occasionally using Periscope to share experiences such as presentations, a Junior Great Books discussion, kids playing in PE, reminding them of the Book Fair, and even demonstrating how we do our Number Talks. How to Make it Private One of my first concerns when I signed up for Periscope was ensuring the privacy of my students. · a higher level of connectedness from parents

Social Media in Teaching and Learning Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Flickr, as well as open social practices such as blogging, are being used in learning for the purpose of convenient communication with other students and potentially with others outside the class such as students of the same topic and subject experts. Many social media, as commercial endeavours, are attractive in that their features often surpass those of internal firewalled environments. The fact that these media are generally open to the world implies a need to carefully consider the risks of openness as well as need for ongoing communication with students in order to address their concerns and deal with issues in the use of social media as they arise. To get started using social media in teaching, consider what you want to achieve. Do you wish to help students with their writing or reflection? Key contacts: Alex Moseley, Matt Mobbs, Terese Bird, Stephen Walker

Adam Bellow Rocks the House at ISTE13 Adam Bellow’s standing ovation came as no surprise to the thousands of teachers who connect with him on Twitter. His keynote took the audience on a journey of laughter and tears. Though he no longer works with students every day, instead working on his latest adventure, Educlipper, it’s evident that Bellow cares deeply about making a difference in the lives of students and teachers. His references to those who have supported him in his journey remind us all to give credit to those who have inspired us. A hush fell over the house as Bellow shared about Sean, his student who died of brain cancer and SeanLivesOn, the project to raise money for cancer research. The following quotes highlight Adam Bellow’s key points: We should have an IEP for every learner: Individualize, don’t standardize.We should all be measuring ourselves and our growth based on who we want to become.Created, crafted work matters. Let your passion ignite the fire.

The Inquiry Process Explained Visually for Teachers Learning is all about being curious and inquisitive. It is a process in which learners explore the unknown through their senses using both sensory and motor skills. Being involved and engaged in the learning task is the key to a successful learning journey and to elicit this kind of engagement from learners, teachers need to nurture a learning environment where students take responsibility for their learning and 'where they are only shown where to look but not told what to see'. Such environment definitely requires a solid approach and an informed strategy to learning one that is dubbed: inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is essential in developing the most solicited 21st century skills : problem solving and critical thinking.As a teacher, you might be wondering about ways to inculcate the precepts of strategy into your teaching and lesson planning.

Twitter in the Classroom - The Brown Bag Teacher As a teacher, watching other teachers in action is the most valuable Professional Development I can have. I love seeing other professionals in their happy place and learn from their classrooms. Realistically, guest teachers are expensive, our schedules are too important, and sub plans take TOO long to write. So, as teachers, we turn to alternative methods to build our professional networks - blogs, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. Today I'm sharing about how and why I use Twitter in my 1st grade classroom! While I do have a Twitter account through my blog (@MsWsClassroom), I'm pretty intentional in setting blog/classroom boundaries. On my classroom I account, I do not participate in Twitter Chats (I do that through my blog account, so families are not inundating with tweets about #edchat.) Connecting Families So often our students arrive home to be asked - "How was your day? Building a Community of Teachers Positive PR There are awesome things happening in this classroom.

Teaching Social Media to Digital Natives – Case Study with Syracuse University - Hootsuite Social Media Management Recognizing the growing demand for qualified social media professionals in the business world, HootSuite University launched the Higher Education Program in January with the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. This partnership between industry and academia resulted in a case study outlining how social media professor Dr. William J. This collaboration allowed Dr. Learn more about how Dr. HootSuite University is looking forward to partnering with Higher Education institutions for the upcoming 2013 semesters.

Teaching like it's 2999 Inquiry Learning Ideas for Math and Science With iPads Digital Tools Laurie Sullivan/Flickr By Sam Gliksman The following is the second of a series of excerpts from Gliksman’s book iPad in Education for Dummies. We tend to split science and humanities as though they were separate branches of life. Today’s interconnected world demands that the doctor, engineer, pharmacist, and scientist increasingly master skills that used to be classified within the domain of the arts. More than any other academic disciplines, science and math draw their meaning by relating to life in the “real” world outside the classroom. Granting students the freedom to inquire and explore makes them the investigators of life’s mysteries. This chapter looks at tools that can be used with the iPad to help you investigate phenomena and collect data. Whether it’s geometry, physics, or chemistry, scientific method starts with research, discussion, and the development of a hypothesis about the phenomenon being examined. Submitted by: Dr. Submitted by: Dr. Related

Instagram in the Classroom - Madly Learning I joined Instagram awhile ago but personally, or professionally didn't quite know what to do with it. I posted a few pictures of my kids but wasn't really sure how to use it. Fast forward and a few other blogger friends talked me into opening up a Madly Learning Instagram account. I have found it to be a great way to connect with other bloggers and to see what others are doing in their classrooms. I also noticed that Instagram was what my 4/5 students were using as their chosen social media platform. So all of this got me thinking. I have made a schedule for students to Instagram. I have also learned some things too... Think a Student Instagram Reporter is something you want to try see my tips below. Get Permission - now I do not mean that you need to beg parents for permission to do this. Are you ready to instagram with your class? loading..

"Think, share and take risks!" A Social Media for Teaching & Learning Case Study | Pearson Blog Krista Jackman, English Lecturer, University of New Hampshire This case study is the second in a series that examines the use of social media for teaching and learning. Instructor Profile Krista Jackman is a Lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire, and teaches primarily in the Composition Program. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1991, and Master of Arts in Teaching in English, in 1993. A 2012 winner of a Faculty Excellence in Teaching award, Jackman’s course load includes mostly Freshman Composition, Creative Nonfiction and a variety of Honors Composition sections. Jackman believes that her job as an educator is to create an atmosphere that fosters learning and curiosity. Where, What & Who? Jackman teaches at the University of New Hampshire, the largest public university in the University System of New Hampshire. Pedagogy When students arrive in class on the first day, they know each other only slightly from their first weekend together in the dorm. Recommendations

21 st Century Educational Technology and Learning | K12 educational transformation through technology The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based Learning Inquiry Learning Teaching Strategies Getty By Thom Markham Teachers in a rural southeast Michigan high school were recently discussing the odd behavior of the senior class. The teachers’ explanation: Project-based learning. Here’s the back story. Stories like this are about to become more important to educators. This is a steep challenge because it forces education to cross a philosophic divide. Standardizing Valuable Skills To put a new system in place, a first key step is to disseminate and train every teacher on a clear set of performance standards to assess skills required for effective inquiry, such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The challenge: Right now, a standards-based environment forces teachers to straddle the inquiry process. Assessing Collaborative Learning The iconic model of the individual scholar has been replaced by team-based inquiry. Making Depth of Thinking Evident The challenge: In inquiry, process is as critical as the product.

How I Use Snapchat for Language Learning (+ free downloadable guide!) - Lindsay Does Languages After a week focused on goal setting, this week we’re turning our attention to social media and how to make the most of it for language learning. In this post, I’m sharing how I use Snapchat for language learning. Time to get snappy. One thing that’s great about the Internet is what it’s done for language learners. We’re connected. We can share ideas, motivation, and progress with the aim of encouraging each other to keep going. I also love YouTube in particular for this reason. However, the problem with YouTube is that if you want to practise your languages, whatever level they may be, they’re left there in the open, out of context for all the world to see for as long as you wish to keep them public. This is great and you may well get comments of encouragement and motivation. I was all set to go and didn’t really care about the negative comments I’d get from the inevitable errors of a person babbling away in languages that she hasn’t studied for years. It’s about Snapchat. New Vocabulary

Technology and Education | Box of Tricks Posted by José Picardo on December 31, 2011 In my role as teacher of languages, I have sought to study and understand how the social aspect of Web 2.0 can be harnessed to strengthen the teaching and learning of MFL. Most interesting to me was the transformative potential of blogs, Web 2.0 applications and social networks, not only to enhance existing practice, but also to create new technology-based tasks which would have been previously inconceivable, a process depicted below: However, in order to assess whether learning socially online can truly have a transformative and positive impact on learning outcomes and curriculum delivery as accurately as possible, it is important to moderate any inherent positivity and open up the field of study to all viewpoints, discarding any preconceived notions that may bias the conclusions of this case study and taking care not to avoid any evidence that may be counter to those notions. This case study was completed with the help of my colleague, Mr.