Social Media in Education

OK, I kick it old school.  I get a bit freaked out when I see students in class taking selfies.  Or I get a bit annoyed when my students are constantly on their phone, and trying to hide it from me.  I recently reprimanded a student when I saw her making duckface while taking a selfie...she was supposed to be finishing a test!  But according to Getting Started with Snapchat in Your Classroom, our students are using Snapchat and we should be ok with that.  In fact, we should look for ways to use Snapchat as a learning tool instead of trying to exclude it from our rooms.

Snapchat is essentially a way to tell stories.  So although your story doesn't need to be tightly scripted, there are some things to think about before plunging in.  Think about what you want your story to say, and how you say it.  Make sure to understand what your school or district policies are regarding social media.  And perhaps developing some written guidelines you can share with your students will help you and them have a purpose and a clear direction for usage.  Basically your use of Snapchat in the classroom is the story of your classroom, your way to share information and communicate with others about what's happening with your classes.  When I think about using Snapchat this way, I get less tense and actually it sounds like fun.  

In the article there are five easy ways to try to incorporate Snapchat into your classroom:

1.  as a reminder, for upcoming tests, assignments, activities, etc.;
2.  if you come across some interesting or real-world examples of content;
3.  drawing diagrams or annotations of text;  (This would be awesome for me.  We use text codes for annotating texts, I could Snapchat the text with the text codes I used to annotate.)
4.  as a study session, to share some key information about an upcoming test or assignment;
5.  as professional development - you can see how other super users of Snapchat are using it.


Snapchat can be a very powerful learning tool if you allow your students to take charge of the use of Snapchat in your class.  This is an authentic way to model and teach responsible digital citizenship.  It encompasses the 4 C's of the 21st Century:  Students are using critical thinking in terms of what to post.  Students are communicating with other students and creating content.  Students can collaborate with each other before they post in terms of ideas and pictures.

It's a big "if" though!!  I googled students snapchatting in class, and wow, I came up with some really inappropriate stuff.  If you want your students to use Snapchat in class, you've got to be really careful.  This goes back to having guidelines but also following through and paying close attention to what students are doing.  Maybe one of the jobs in your classroom can be the Snapchatter, and assign students on a rotating basis.  

According to an article on Mashable, (Slightly sensationalistic news, social networking, according to Common Sense Media)  77% of college students use Snapchat on a daily basis.  

As you can see, using Snapchat can help teachers meet students where they are at, but also needs to be carefully monitored so students are using the app for best practices.  I would start off trying Snapchat myself with some of the easy ways above, before I would allow students to take over.  I need to build trust in my classroom and get to a certain comfort level first.