Social media - your partner in teaching

I heard from Danny Rabara Jr last week in response to my post about PD using social media.  He sent me an article about using social media in education and asked me to share it on this blog. Now I don't often respond to people who work for organizations who try to get me to publish their work in order to promote a service they offer, but this resource was a bit different from most. Having read it through I thought it contained some valuable information and I did want to share it.

The article starts by referring to the fact that the way we search for and consume information has changed dramatically over the past 20 years.  Now most people search for information online, and as well as this by subscribing to various apps and feeds, information comes straight to you.  Because of this social media is referred to as "your partner in teaching".

The first part of the article gives reasons for teachers to be on social media.  These include using it to teach digital literacy and helping students to become better digital citizens.  Other advantages are keeping current with breaking news and sharing your class news with your students' parents.  As well as this you can become part of an online community of fellow educators using tools such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.  There's some good advice too about keeping your personal and professional life separate on social media.

The second part of the article is an in-depth analysis of several social media tools and the educational benefits of using them.  There are also suggestions on how to integrate the tools into class activities and a list of various educational groups that you can join within them.  The tools highlighted are Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat.  If you have never used these social media tools as a teacher, this article is a great place to find out how to integrate them into your class learning engagements.

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