Social Media in the Classroom

This Padlet wall was created for a 2nd grade classroom. Padlet is an online social media tool that allows students and teachers to connect by sharing ideas, links, videos and photos. Upon signing up you get four free Padlet walls. If you want more, you have to sign up and pay for an account. This Padlet wall is intended to help students organize information about Jellyfish. The wall could be used at the beginning or end of the unit.

Here is a video with more information on how you could use Padlet in your classroom.

FlipGrid is another social media tool where students can respond to questions with videos. Teachers can sign up for a free account or pay for a subscription. There is also a district subscription. It would probably be worth your time to check to see if your district has paid for a subscription.

I have not personally used FlipGrid in my classroom yet, but my goal is to use is this fall. It will take some time to introduce and teach my 2nd grade students how to use FlipGrid, but I think my students would enjoy being able to respond to questions using videos. I also love the setting where the teacher can view the videos before posting them to the FlipGrid site.

Here is a video explaining FlipGrid for teachers.

Once you log into your free FlipGrid account the main screen will look like this. There are so many tutorials online about FlipGrid. Take some time to do more research about FlipGrid and if you use it in your own classroom, I'd love to hear your tips and tricks.

Before beginning to use any social media tools in your classroom, it is important to consider the benefits and risks of social media. Unfortunately in our world, may people misuse social media. It is important to educate yourself and students so they can make safe choices while using social media. Check out this video with some more information about social media.