Students today interact in online spaces in ways we couldn't have imagined five or 10 years ago. When I started my teaching career, Instagram and Snapchat were still far off on the horizon. As more students gained access to personal devices outside of the classroom, social media platforms changed the way we learn about current events and share ideas with others. Although preparing students to navigate a digital world can take many forms, the task is a necessary one.
As you plan to teach course content in any subject area, you can include social media–inspired activities for students of all ages and use strategies with a social media twist that bring subject matter to life, no matter what students are learning.
Online spaces provide students with an opportunity to connect with people from around the world. Students can share their ideas and learn from others as they read, listen, and view content posted by individuals and organizations with a variety of viewpoints. Preparing students to interact in these spaces is essential. Personal and professional communications increasingly rely on navigating social media to gather and evaluate information. The experiences students have during the school day can include a connection to the type of content they might come across as consumers, such as YouTube videos, Instagram posts, and TikTok videos.
Students also have the potential to be creators in these spaces by making their own videos, visuals, and blog posts. Your role is to help students make connections to the authentic experiences they have online while exploring subjects and topics that may come up in your classroom.
Podcast Reviews
The content students come across in digital spaces can vary greatly. Podcasts, which are often presented as several episodes in a series, are one medium that lets students hear from experts in different fields. From folktales to investigative reports, students can listen to a podcast to learn something new and practice responding critically and concisely.
For example, you might have students listen to a recording from Up First by NPR. After the episode of the day is finished, students can respond with a thought or question related to the content. You might have students post this publicly on the podcast homepage or as a comment on an Instagram post from the podcast creator. Alternatively, students can share their comments in a space reserved for your class like Google Classroom or Schoology. In this teacher-focused podcast episode, I share some of my favorite resources for kid-friendly podcasts.
Student Branding
When talking about branding, we often think about a logo like the golden arches of McDonald's or the swoosh of Nike. Now branding also relates to students' online presence and how it might communicate their values. Students of all ages can explore this idea of branding, whether they are creating a digital portfolio in a 4th grade classroom or publishing videos on their YouTube channel to share in a college application.
This summer, when working with high school students at a design camp, we discussed how colors, fonts, and themes—like the options presented in Spark for Education—can help a creator communicate tone and intention with an audience. Discussions on personal branding can make clear connections to digital citizenship topics on how students connect themselves in online spaces. Alternatively, you might have students think about branding from the perspective of a historical figure or character in a novel, where they create a profile and mock posts to go along with this real or imagined character.
Concise and Clear
Many social spaces limit the amount of content contributors can share in a single post, such as Twitter's word-count limitations for single tweets. You can use these constraints as an asset when talking to students about sharing concise responses.
For example, you might have students create an e-book or website that showcases what they learned about a particular topic. This could be a science experiment, a book review, or any of the project ideas I've used to incorporate apps into my classroom. Over the past few years, I've worked with a school in New York where students have used Adobe Spark to create a website to biographies or used Book Creator to create e-books that chronicle their reading responses in an easy-to-share format. Although their final project might go into detail, you can ask them to create a short summary with a character count limit. You might connect this to persuasive writing goals on how to "hook" a reader with a call to action, as they try to convince someone to click on their link to learn more about the topic their topic.
Evaluating Sources
Evaluating sources doesn't have to be limited to a digital citizenship curriculum. It might involve informal conversations about where a piece of online information came from. For example, a teacher can share a news article and talk to students about the components of a reputable source or trustworthy journalist.
In a 1st grade classroom, a conversation on evaluating sources might include reviewing a website and pointing out some of the key features that demonstrate an organization's authority to publish on a topic. In a 10th grade classroom, conversations with students might include a review of a blog post or a close examination of an image or video. You might ask students questions like
- Who published this website? Are they an expert on this topic?
- Does this website include citations or references to other sources?
- What do I know about the author of this resource? Where can I go to find out more about them?
As you design activities for the school year, keep social media in mind. In addition to preparing students to navigate online social spaces, you can help make connections to the way students consume and share information outside of your classroom. You might find that these activities shape the ways that your course content connects to students' everyday interactions on their favorite social media platform.
If you have a social media–inspired activity to share, I'd love to hear all about it! Tag @classtechtips on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook when you share.