Using Social Media to Share/Communicate/Reflect

Using Social Media to Share/Communicate/Reflect

It's time to face the facts – students love using social media! As a teacher at the beginning of this course, I was constantly looking for ways to have students turn off their personal devices (phones, iPads, laptops, netbooks, e-readers etc). However, after learning about how I can use social media as a teaching tool, I have learned to send students to these tools instead of pulling them away from them.

Blogs:

My students have each created a blog using the website KidBlog. They regularly create posts about different topics and are required to comment on the posts of their classmates. Consequently, students are peer-assessing without even realizing it! They check the posts for spelling, grammar, writing conventions, an ability to clearly organize thoughts etc, and leave an online reply so that the author can revise his/her work.

Audio in the Classroom:

In history, my grade seven classes are writing monologues from the perspective of a historical person who played a part in the Seven Years War. However, not only are they creating the monologue, they are using Audacity to add background music and sound effects to their audio recording to establish the desired mood and tone for their piece.

Twitter:

I have created a Twitter account that many students and parents have begun following. I often send out reminders about different events that either happened throughout the day or that will be coming up. It's great to be able to communicate with students and parents in such an easy and effective way!

Image Manipulation:

Since the students have just completed their literature circles, they are going to be working on a culminating activity. One of the options they have is to create a slogan and logo that reflects a charity they read about in their novel. They will be able to use various image manipulation sites to create their piece and can provide a justification of their ideas using a text overlay. I can't wait to get them started!

Overall, this technology course has been a whirlwind of a learning opportunity for me and I look forward to continue my own professional development so that I am best able to meet the needs of my students.