INTEGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA IN TEACHING AND LEARNING IN CLASSROOM

If you’re a teacher, you’re likely always looking for ways to get your students excited about learning. One innovative method is through social media. But while some teachers already use Tweets, status updates and text messages in their lessons, you may be unsure how to employ these tools in an engaging way. Students are using these technologies in their personal lives, so it makes sense to leverage them for teaching and learning and here are six strategies to help incorporate social media into the classroom:

Set a good example.

It’s not enough now to teach students their lessons and how to be productive members of society, it’s important to cover digital citizenship so that students understand how to use social media inside and outside of school.

Create a class Face book page.

On the Facebook® social network, teachers can build pages for their classes that they can use for “communicating class announcements, class activities and assignment deadlines, etc. Also can be an easy way for parents to see what their kids are doing in class.

Another option is employing tools like the Edmodo® site, often referred to as the Facebook for schools, which provides a secure place for teachers to interact with students, parents and administrators.

Establish online guidelines.

It is important that class pages are constantly monitored by teachers. If there are inappropriate comments or posts, they can be removed, and the offender can be restricted from posting but not viewing in the space in the future. School boards and districts are getting in on the act, too. 

Devise a Twitter “channel.”

The Twitter® micro-blogging service, with its 140-character limit, is a good choice for teachers who want to deliver short bursts of information to students or help them practice concise writing.

It is a very easy tool to use because teachers can create an account and send students updates about classroom activities and homework. If students follow other people on Twitter, though, your messages may get lost in the shuffle. Prevent this by using a specific hash tag that students can use to filter your posts. Twitter is a practical option for teachers to communicate privately with parents.

Use Skype for guest speakers.

While you still can invite guest speakers from the community to your classroom, Skype® videoconferencing software allows you to effectively bring in people from around the world. Teachers can reach out to authors and experts in their fields and see if one of those individuals is willing to video conference with the class.

Gone are the days when students were limited to the library for in-depth research. Technology allows students to have access to a wealth of resources for learning including many primary sources of information.

Get ideas from your peers.

You may already use the LinkedIn® professional network to connect with other teachers, so why not capitalize on those relationships to exchange lesson plans and other ideas?

Teachers might use LinkedIn, Twitter, Jing® [video-sharing site] or other social media tools to join professional groups related to teaching and recommending that they use the sites to meet teachers locally and from across the globe who are interested in the same subjects.