Friday, June 21, 2019

How To Use Social Media For Educators

By Patricia Gray


Chances are that you are computer literate and you already use social media for your day to day life. The good thing is that these platforms can be responsibly used in the classroom. You can use this tool to help your students in their academic lives. There are several ways to use social media for educators.

Get your students to choose one person that they want to follow online. This person can be on any platform. They can then be checking the posts that the person has made on a regular basis. Then get the students to write a response paper to the author on any of the issues that they have talked about. The main point of this lesson is to create awareness about the different kinds of content that are available online. In addition, kids will start learning online lingo that is commonly used.

You can teach your students how to blog. Since learners get to do a lot of writing anyway, you can make this more exciting for them by asking them to create a blog and post their assignments on their blogs. Then ask them to read the blogs of other students and at least leave comments in a couple of blogs. You can make their posts public or private, based on your preferences.

Such platforms make it possible for kids to meet and socialize with learners from others parts of the country or other parts of the world. For instance, you can organize to have video calls with another class and have a discussion on a common topic that both classes are learning. This is great way for kids to get exposure to other cultures and communities.

Creating a virtual group is also a good idea. Other learners, parents and even an administrator from the school. Use the group to post any useful information you want kids and parents to know. Students are also allowed to post. Just ensure that you keep an eye on the page and remove any irrelevant posts that are made.

Use these platforms to not just teach your students but to improve your life as well. For instance, use the platforms to connect with your peers. Join professional groups in your country and around the world and share ideas, lessons plans, materials, experiences and other things.

Expand your learner's creativity by asking them to create picture boards for various things. This will make their learning experience much more exciting. For instance, they can save pictures about a particular topic that you are learning in class. They can then write short descriptions for every picture they save.

Just remember that you need to put some rules in place. This is to protect the children from any risks and to ensure that they are responsible when online and that they also learn to manage their time well. Moreover, instead of using real platforms, consider using clones of the sites, so that anything the children post is not posted publicly.




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