In our Tech Class, we were asked to post our opinions on how we could safely
include social media in our classrooms. This really got me thinking, as
social media is such a prominent aspect of student's lives these days.
But there is such a fine line on how to use it as a safe classroom tool.
I knew it could be done I just had to figure out how. Two main
articles really laid it out clearly for me. Reading, “50 Ways to Use Twitter in
the Classroom” and the article that Holly, a fellow Tech student posted, “Social media for schools: a guide to Twitter, Facebook
and Pinterest” really opened my eyes. I truly didn’t really know how to
integrate Twitter and Facebook into the classroom before. Now, I feel
inspired with the possibilities.
In terms of safety surrounding using social media in the classroom I thought of these ideas that I could approach with students:
1. Only follow people who are your friends.
2. Teach students how to set up their privacy settings
3. Create a classroom Twitter/Facebook that will only be used for classroom purposes. Discuss with students expectations for posting, specifying that twitter and Facebook will be used as a classroom tool and not for personal purposes.
4. Monitor students’ tweets/Facebook posts.
5. Create a Twitter board to practice using twitter before the real deal.
6. Assess student’s use of twitter/Facebook. Discuss expectations with the students so they will know how they will be assessed.
A few of the ideas in the article “50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom”, stuck out to me, and I hope to use them in my future classroom.
In terms of safety surrounding using social media in the classroom I thought of these ideas that I could approach with students:
1. Only follow people who are your friends.
2. Teach students how to set up their privacy settings
3. Create a classroom Twitter/Facebook that will only be used for classroom purposes. Discuss with students expectations for posting, specifying that twitter and Facebook will be used as a classroom tool and not for personal purposes.
4. Monitor students’ tweets/Facebook posts.
5. Create a Twitter board to practice using twitter before the real deal.
6. Assess student’s use of twitter/Facebook. Discuss expectations with the students so they will know how they will be assessed.
A few of the ideas in the article “50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom”, stuck out to me, and I hope to use them in my future classroom.
1. Create a classroom ‘group’ on Facebook and ‘list’ on twitter.
2. Tweet about homework and assignment clarification and deadlines.
3. Students can post or tweet if they are having any issues completing an assignment. They can ask each other for help and ask the teacher for help.
4. Students can keep up with current issues, and can re-post or tweet information from the news.
5. Students can follow politics and politicians in the area.
6. Teacher can post educational websites for students and parents.
7. Teachers can promote different clubs/extracurriculars on Facebook and Twitter.
Another
way I saw Facebook being used was in a high school here in BC, the leadership
students had a group on Facebook, where they could organize events. For
instance, this was at the beginning of the year, and students were sorting out
which events they would run at the school throughout the year. They used their
Facebook group to share ideas, and to then sign up for which events they wanted
to help out with. Pretty cool!
