Use the Tools the Students Know

If our students are already on social media, why not use that to teach them? One takeaway I want to hold onto from this lesson is that we need to “keep kids writing, no matter where they write.” For me as an English teacher this will be most important. Writing is all about expressing yourself, and if students already express themselves on Twitter, Instagram, or some other social media site then keep it that way. Students are already familiar with the format. It would be a great tool to expand on for a writing lesson. I like the example we were shown of the teacher who used Instagram and had students all commenting on a photo. Anything that can combine different media is great too, like have a picture to go along with the words written.

 Write Anywhere

https://www.flickr.com

Having the ability to also connect with students and other teachers through social media will be wonderful. I have always found it hard to find new ideas for leading a group of students in a learning activity or finding inspiration for a classroom. Being able to connect with other teachers, seeing what they are sharing on Twitter and what ideas they have will be helpful. It is also cool to think about the fact that we could connect our classrooms through things like #comment4kids so students can see what classes from another school in the city or across the country are working on and encourage each other. 

Blog Posts Links: I like the compliment/comment sandwich, I used it for the second blog post
https://www.writeabout.com/words.pictures
https://kidblog.org/regret