Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media In the Classroom

Educators interested in using social media to enrich learning will enjoy these ideas for using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Skype in the classroom from Online Universities. The post includes real examples of educators using social media in their classrooms. Here are some ideas for K-12 classrooms.

  1. Make literature real. Have students create a Facebook page for a character from literature you are studying like this class did.
  2. Follow famous people. Many famous people are on Twitter. Have students follow someone related to what you are studying, such as following President Obama when looking at government.
  3. Twitter treasure hunt. Use GPS treasure hunting to send students in search of educational clues as one teacher did. (Skip to number 22 in the slide show.)
  4. Learn probability. This elementary teacher uses Twitter to teach the concept of probability.
  5. Study geography. Use a combination of Twitter and Google Earth to help teach geography-based lessons. This teacher used his network of Twitter followers to create an interactive lesson for his young students. Use her idea to spark your creativity for ways to use these two resources.
  6. Connect with other classrooms. Collaborate with another classroom, no matter where they are in the world, to expand learning opportunities.
  7. Recent public updates. The recent public updates on Twitter shows the most recent posts from all users and is a great tool to use when studying current events.
  8. Field trips. Use Skype to bring the field trip into the classroom when it is difficult or impossible for students to go to the source.
  9. Conference with parents. Stay connected with parents through social media to communicate their child’s progress.
Visit the original post for more ideas.

4 comments:

  1. I would also suggest geocaching. Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container usually a tupperware container containing a logbook. Many innovative educators are using it as an effective learning tool. To learn more, visit http://www.geocaching.com/

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  2. @Jacob, agree. Geocaching is a great activity that my boyfriend and I have recently discovered and he's been having a lot of fun engaging in this with his son. This has great potential as a free and educational activity to take place as part of, or after school.

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  3. I love these ideas which are also applicable to the virtual education space! I will share them with our community!

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  4. I am amaze with all of these social media can be use in the classroom. I only use this for my personal social networking. I am on facebook, twitter, and have used skype to talk and connect with my family in the philippines. I will definitely try this and share this wonderful ideas with my co teachers in the building. Jacob, your geocaching idea would be a good science activity, I am excited myself to apply this in my teaching and I can tell and figure right now that my students would really love this!

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