Tremendously Terrific Tips and Tricks Part 3: Social Media!

Ok y’all…. Some of you are going to LOVE this one and some of you aren’t so much. Which is OK! Remember, take it or leave it, all I ask is that you read with an open mind and open heart! Somethings will work for some people, other things won’t.

Today was the first day of school for kids. It was as messy and chaotic as it always is. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute that my kids were in my classroom! Every single minute. I am going to share two things with you today. I am saving the best for last! 😉

Instagram

I have a “Teacher” Instagram account. It is a regular account that I use for posting pictures of everything I do in my classroom and for posting when I am at conferences and workshops to keep everyone in the know of how much fun we are having! Every year, I offer my account name up to my students @lamaestraloca. I encourage them to follow me if they want to. I also tell them that IF they want me to follow them back I will. (ALMOST ALWAYS, they want me to).

Reasons Instagram is AWESOME:

• You get “cool factor” points without trying just because not only do you KNOW what Instagram is but you actually have one
• You get tons of followers right away which makes you feel really really popular
• IF students choose to have you follow them back, it is a GREAT way to:
  • Keep up on their “summer” activities
  • Get to know them better (if you take two seconds to browse their pictures you can quickly see what they like and don’t and it makes PQA way more fun!)
  • Be in-tune with their ups and downs
    • I had a student last year who posted something very concerning, I was able to alert admin and the counselor in my building and I also got to sit down with the student and let them know s/he had a TON of people who love him/her and care. The student told me later in the year how much they appreciated this…
• You can post pictures of your fun times in class and then WRITE about it IN THE TL, and they go and they READ that for FUN because they are excited about the picture.
• 
  • They ask you to tag them in the pics which is SO fun
  • You have a progression of photos throughout the year and it is so fun to go back with kids and PICTURE talk photos later on.
• When you AREN’T around the kids, post pics to say how much you miss them or you’re thinking of them and they write you cute notes after
• When you go to conferences and you meet Señor Wooly in person you can make your kids the most jealous people in the history of the world when you post it on your Insta!
• There is a teacher in my school who has the kids add photos to a “community” class Instagram as a homework assignment. I am toying with this idea and trying to make it INPUT based rather than OUTPUT because I don’t like ever assigning OUTPUT homework.
• Students that move on out of your class, will keep in touch with you through Instagram. I still have students in Colorado who send me messages through there every month or tag me in photos saying they miss me or they thought of me.
• This summer I had students send me videos on Instagram of them singing our “Song of the Month” and dancing to it with their friends at sleep overs. SO fun!
• You will have students TAG you to pictures that they think would be AWESOME to picture talk.
  • There is nothing like having STUDENTS plan FOR you… how sweet is that?!

Caution:

Before you get an Instagram carefully consider the following:

• Does your school have a “Social media policy” that will conflict with you being able to “friend” students (mine does but I am not their friends on my PERSONAL Instagram and I am using it for class)
• BEFORE posting PICTURES of your students make sure that you are ALLOWED to!
  • Ask your admin or admissions or parent communications team or advertising committee or SOMEONE who knows the answer about what “media release forms” kids have signed.
    • At my school, upon enrollment students and parents sign a release so this is not something I have ever had to worry about (YES, I know I am lucky)
• BEFORE you FOLLOW your kids BACK, you MUST be clear and upfront with them that if they post, or write anything questionable, illegal, or concerning, that YOU are their TEACHER first and foremost and you will report it.
  • Honestly, if I were teaching high school, I would have to think LONG and hard before “following” any of my kids

Snapchat

FIRST OFF….

I do not “follow”, “Snapchat” or “friend” students until they’ve graduated from high school. That is a personal preference.

I used Snapchat primarily this year to do story retells, or to “recount” PQA that I did with kids that day and re-tell it in the past tense the next day.

I have spent WAY too much time today trying to get the video files I saved onto my old school computer to show you an example of this. I am giving up because I have something JUST as good, in fact, BETTER because it is NOT me for a change and it is the BRILLIANT AMY MARSHALL…. I got to finally meet my “teacher twin” this summer and she is EVERYTHING I wanted her to be and more….I have also learned that from now on I need to post ALL of my Snapchat videos that I create for class ON YOUTUBE so I can access them again. Thank you AMY!

Here is one that she did at a higher level:

 

How is this NOT engaging?!?!!?

Here is another awesome one from Profe Jen Cornell! How awesome would THIS be for students to open!

Reasons Snapchat is AWESOME:

• Again, immediate “props” from your students for being the “cool teacher” on the block! 😉
• It is SOOOOOO FUNNY
  • Literally, planning has never been so enjoyable… I crack myself up y’all! and you will too…. it is inevitable.
  • YOUR KIDS WILL LOOOOVE IT and if you give it to them in video format they will listen to input OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again because it is so funny and entertaining! (all of these are 10 seconds long now)

• The BEST thing I did this year with it, was planned an entire SUB lesson. I left a plan for the sub to literally OPEN the video file. I taught a class through Snapchat… YES, an entire class
  • I will share this online next time I do it. This was one of the video files I couldn’t recover. It was EPIC though!!!
• You can play April Fool’s Jokes on your colleagues…. and send out Snaps to their emails (because honestly most teachers aren’t as cool as you and won’t have Snapchat)

• It is SUPER fun for special school events like field trips or sleep-overs like this one!

• You can take fun pics ON Snapchat WITH your class for a Selfie Brain Break and then post it on your teacher Instagram account!

• The “filters” are constantly changing… You never know what you’re going to get!

 

So, first you have to download it. Then, if you choose to use it for story retells I am going to give you a QUICK lesson through pictures on how to do so…. The most important thing is recognizing that if you do not SAVE the video through these steps (there are lots of them) the video (which is only 10 seconds long) will disappear the minute you send it. That is why Snapchat is a LITTLE scary to me and why I refuse to be friends with students until after graduation.

1. Take a snap then click on the bottom left hand corner to “save” to your “memories
2. Click on the X if you aren’t going to send it to anyone else
3. Go back to the screen where you would do a snap and look at the button BELOW the “take a pic” button. Touching it will take you to your memories
4. This is what your memories look like. Click on one that you want to save to your phone.
5. Next click Edit and Save at the bottom of the photo
6. Then click on the little thing that looks like an arrow in a box
7. Then click save video to save it to your phone.

In order to put a lot of movies together, I use iMovie or Splice. Splice is the easiest. This goes against all of my “no plan lesson planning” or little planning “rules”! BUT it is SO much fun! SO worth it!

There you have it! If nothing else I hope that you were entertained while reading!

Until tomorrow!

Happy Teaching!

Love,

La Maestra Loca