Statistics on the age of social media users are incredulous.
As of July 2014, 78% of 12 to 17-year-olds (6th to 11th
graders) that are active online used Facebook at least once monthly, and 52% used
Instagram as often. Our world really is starting to become more about posting
than relationship building. The instant gratification of online interaction and
visual displays on sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram has
forced educators to connect with their students in new ways.
For middle grade teachers, this transition may have been
slower than instructors in higher grades, but it has become the norm none-the-less.
In our experience, Instagram is the best way to unite with our students for a
number of reasons.
Firstly, there is less clutter. By sticking to photos and
flipgrams on our Instagram profiles, we avoid getting lost in the
conglomeration of personal posts, onslaught of each major topic that muddles
the feed, and drama often seen on other social media sites.
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| Sometimes silly is good! |
As we all know, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But
really, for us, the photos we share on Instagram do more than paint a point of
view for our students. It offers a way to make them laugh, remind them of
assignments due and upcoming quizzes, and praise them on work well done. We
know it works when we get comments like this one: “Oh no we have a quiz
tomorrow I need to study!” If posting those pics gets them to
study, we’re not complaining!
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| We love telling our students well done via Instagram! There's something about public praise that builds their confidence! |
Lastly, Instagram is easy. We can snap pictures throughout
the day, thumb out a quick caption, tag a few students if necessary and voila! We've given our students reasons to stay connected and remember important details.
Our use of Instagram has further inspired us to create
curriculum for our students! We have common
core fulfilling “selfie” worksheets of famous historical figures ranging from
Marco Polo to Leonardo DiVinci to Confucius. We also have similar worksheets on
Samurais, feudal medieval Japan, soldiers from different wars, and classroom
ice breakers. (Click
here to check them out on our Teachers Pay Teachers page.)
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| One of our Instagram Curriculum sheets on Teachers Pay Teachers Store |
If you’re a middle grade teacher trying to find a way to
reach your students without the hassle of competing with the other faucets of
their lives, I hope we’ve convinced you to give Instagram a try! Check out our "Classroom Tools" for more ways to incorporate Instagram into your classroom.
How do you connect with your students? Please tell us in the
comments below!
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