Insta-Classroom!

Last week, I posted about using a classroom Twitter account to communicate with parents. Although I haven't been using it this year, I definitely like the idea of using social networking to get parents involved. I think that for 3rd grade, the best way to use social media in the classroom is to have a classroom account that students can make guest posts for.
Another teacher at my school has been experimenting with using a classroom Instagram account. I would envision using a class Instagram in a very similar way to Twitter. I think it would be a great way to show parents what is going on in the classroom. While Twitter has a strict character count, Instagram does not. This would allow students to explain what they learned or what was going on in the photo without worrying about a character limit. My only concern about an Instagram account would be the fact that you have to upload a photo with each post. I think I would ultimately be less likely to use this type of account because of that. I can see myself wanting to post, but forgetting to take photos during the day!
I am excited to experiment more with social networking in the classroom as it really gains momentum socially. More of our parents are now just as connected as we are, so it would be great to provide them with a place to see what we are doing in the classroom and interact with students and teachers digitally.

A Classroom All a Twitter

Last year I was really trying to communicate more with my students' parents. I decided to give a classroom twitter a try! It sounded like such a great idea! Unfortunately, I found it extremely hard to keep up with. Perhaps as I gain more teaching experience, I will be able to keep up with a daily update like this.
For the classroom twitter, I sent out a letter to parents to get their permission for photos and to inform them about the purpose of our classroom twitter. I made sure to keep the account private, so I had to approve each follower. I ended up having a good bit of parents begin to follow our account. We introduced it to the students and told them we would have a "tweeter of the day". It was a great lesson for the students to practice thinking about main idea or even just something interesting that they learned. The hardest part about having the students tweet was explaining what a hashtag is! As tech savvy as our third graders are, the idea of hashtags went right over their heads. For most of their tweets, we would help them come up with a few hashtags to go with their tweet.
I really hope that maybe next year I will be able to give our account new life. We really enjoyed posting pictures and having the students share their learning with their parents!