Social media is going to stay around for an extended period. Hence, teachers must be smart enough to leverage it as a pedagogical tool. Some teachers may not appreciate the idea that social media is being used in a classroom, while other teachers may feel it can be an effective medium for educational purposes. The truth is, if used correctly, social media in the school can support increasing student expertise, enhance communication amongst parents, teachers & students, and enable students to seek help from others while encouraging student participation.
Keep up with trends
Teachers and school administrators can communicate via twitter. Using education hashtags to identify existing trends would be appropriate. Sharing new ideas with other professionals would be more effective.
Communicate with students and parents
Most people are using Twitter nowadays. It is the appropriate way to stay connected with students and parents. Teachers can tweet about classroom sessions.
Receive feedback from students
Students can tweet questions to teachers. By maintaining a running line of student’s opinion and their problems, teachers can address their thoughts in a classroom.
Get students summarizing
Students can summarize what they have learned in the classroom through a tweet. It also makes them think critically regarding the vital information.
Connect with other classes
Teachers can connect their classroom with another through Twitter. Students can use the classroom twitter handle to tweet and establish communication with students globally.
Create a Facebook group for your class
Teachers must use Facebook to create class groups. Groups on Facebook have privacy settings. Teachers can create a Facebook group for their class that is safe to share information online.
Document class events
Teachers must take the opportunity to document and share pictures from class activities, events, field trips.
Use Facebook Live to provide additional help
Facebook Live is the latest feature that is very useful in the classroom. It is a tool that enables teachers to record videos that students can access through live streaming. Facebook Live is an excellent way to share videos on complex lessons.
Teach students digital citizenship skills
By encouraging students to communicate online through Facebook, teachers can assist students in gaining digital skills. They can guide students on sharing online content accurately. Facebook is a tool that can help in differentiating between real and fake news.
Use Skype for Guest Speakers
Skype is an excellent video conferencing tool that enables an individual to communicate with a professional from across the globe efficiently. Teachers can use the platform to get in touch with prominent subject matter experts and request them to talk to students & share their valuable insights and expertise.