Social Media in the Classroom

The count is on... 19 days left of school here in my neck of the woods! I cannot believe that summer break is almost here. This year has flown by! My students are super excited, too, which is why it's even more important to find ways to keep them engaged until the very last day of learning. My fourth graders LOVE to use tech, and anytime I can make it more like "big kid" stuff, that's a big bonus. 

Social Media benefits and risks:

In past blog posts, I have blogged about Edmodo, Pinterest, Twitter, and Diigo so I will touch on Padlet and Symbaloo this week.

Padlet: I have used Padlet a few times in my classroom, and I love it. It's a really easy and quick way for students to share information with the class. Below are some that I have used in my classroom.

We made this Padlet at the beginning of the year. I had students brainstorm all of the norms that they want to see in our classroom. Then we talked about each of them, combined some, generalized others, and whittled it down to five "Classroom Rules" for our poster. This way, the students felt they all had a say in what our class norms would be!

The students took pictures of idioms and used context clues to figure out their meanings. They had a lot of fun taking pictures with the iPads! 

Students are working in pairs to research a state and make a commercial inviting others to visit their state. We used this Padlet for students to post three or more fun facts about their state. 

Padlet makes adding to the board very easy through a shareable link or QR code. I used the QR code to share these boards with students, but the link would be very useful for a virtual classroom or email. We have used Padlet as a staff to share out what we learned from some reading that we did in a jigsaw format. They can be used anonymously or have names so that student have accountability. I love the versatility of Padlet!

Symbaloo: Symbaloo is a very easy-to-use bookmarking tool. Each "board" you make is called a "webmix." Our district has a few set up for teachers and for students. They are quick to make, and once you share them, you can continue to update the links that you have on your Symbaloo webmix. It's cloud-based so you can access it anywhere. I have this one set up for my students to use at school or at home. They can even access it over the summer to practice some of those skills that otherwise would be lost over a long break. As you can see from mine, you can color-code and group together certain links to make it easier to use. You can embed your Symbaloo on your class website, within your virtual classroom, or set as the home screen on your classroom computers. Within the site, you can search for already-made webmixes to get even more ideas of what to share with your students. You can make them for other teachers in the building, for parents, or for students (for one topic, or the whole school year!). There are many different uses for this cool tool. 

There are so many great social media tools out there to use with students. Just remember to be safe, and err on the side of caution. My rule of thumb is that if I have to ask if something is OK to post - it's probably not.