Social Media in the Classroom

Most of us as adults use social media to keep in contact with friends and to see what others are up to such as celebrities and to know what is going on in other across the world.

Nowadays schools are fully immersing into using as much technology as possible in the classrooms.

As an educator have you ever considered combining the two, social media and tech in the classroom?

Apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine and programs such as Screencast-o-matic are starting to become common staples in tech-filled classrooms, and with good results. Incorporating technology in the schools also provides parents resources to stay connected with their child's school and be updated with school events rather than wondering where that handout with the school calendar went.

Below I offer a personal review of some of the apps that could be used in the classroom.

Screencast-O-Matic

I've seen this program being used most often in my graduate courses, especially since they're online courses. Professors often use Screencast-O-Matic to show their students how to navigate through Blackboard or other programs needed for certain courses. At the EC-12 levels it can also be used for students and parents as well. I included a screencast of my own for students at the elementary level. I can see this being used for middle school and high school to teach them how to use programs like Prezi. Screencasts are great because students can always refer to them outside of the classroom.
Personally I liked Screencast-O-Matic much more than others such as Jing. Jing took too many tutorials to figure out and even then I still couldn't figure it out well enough to create a screencast.

Screencast for Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark

This app was one of my favorites to use. It felt like using Instagram but with a whole bunch of extra features. You can use pictures and add text and effects to them, you can create blog/scrapbook type pages and you can also create videos. I felt it was very user friendly although I did find it a bit easier to use on my phone as compared to using it on my Macbook. The phone app is very limited since I was only able to edit and create photos and not pages or videos.
This picture can easily be saved and posted onto Instagram or on Twitter with a tiny url.
Spooky Reads/Adobe Spark


Instagram

I use Instagram for my personal photos but I have started to see several high schools use it to display school events and student work. School libraries often display pictures of new books that they have received and new makerspaces that are available for use. I am not allowed to post pictures of students on personal accounts and my school currently does not have a Instagram account. For these reasons I will refer to some of my favorite school library Instagram accounts:
Castilleja School Library
The Daring Librarian

Vine

I've personally never used to Vine but have seen Vines before. It's owned by Twitter and is used to create short videos. I mean SHORT, six seconds type of short. What can one do in six seconds? The huge time constraint really kickstarts the imagination and ensures that it's straight and to the point. Again, I am not allowed to record at school (only technology trainer, parent liaison, and yearbook staff) and there is no vine account active for the school at this moment I will refer to a great example of using Vine in a school library:
The Daring Librarian


It is great that social media is doing a crossover into school in a functional and educational way. I see this being used more for middle school and especially high school or in elementary schools where students' parents have access to technology (such as smart phones).

Which apps have you used in the classroom and how well did they work with your students?

Comment below!