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"It is quickly becoming a non-negotiable for all classrooms to leverage social media in order to communicate with families and other classrooms-thus engaging others in the daily lives of students. While simply posting "fun" photos is a start, this novelty wears off quickly, and as a result, we must think more critically about how we communicate via social media. We must think more critically about how we communicate via social media. As a second grade teacher who facilitates a student-centered classroom, I now believe our use of social media is an opportunity for students to partake in the type of learning in which they can thrive and shout their story to the world."

"Zeen (@zeen_com on Twitter) is a free, online platform in beta for creating digital magazines. The website lets you quickly pull photos from Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, as well as videos from YouTube and integrate them into slick, multi-page online magazines. Today I created a travelog magazine about our family's recent fall break adventures titled, "Boston & Maine: Fall Break 2012 Highlights & Memories." The screenshot below doesn't do the platform justice: Visit the actual website to scroll down pages and use the navigational table of contents links on the left and right sidebars to move within the document."

"Earlier this year, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York, visitors paraded through the fifth floor to see a retrospective dedicated to the abstract expressionist Frank Stella. Although many of the works on display were four or five decades old, in some ways the show felt tailor-made for the Instagram age: a riot of vibrant colors and textures, 20-foot-long reliefs, and sculptures as jagged and dynamic as 3-D graffiti. Visitors one busy Saturday afternoon stopped in front of artworks, lined up shots on their phones, snapped a few photos, and then moved on to the next piece. Some paused briefly to consider a particular painting; more stared down at their screens, furiously filtering. Few noticed an elderly gentleman sitting on a bench in one of the smaller rooms, watching the crowd engage with his work. The only visitor in the gallery not clutching a phone was Stella himself. Museum directors are grappling with how technology has changed the ways people engage with exhibits. But instead of fighting it, some institutions are using technology to convince the public that, far from becoming obsolete, museums are more vital than ever before. Here's what those efforts look like."

""Maker spaces"-facilities designed to encourage hands-on activity and experimentation-have become an increasingly exciting part of many schools' digital-learning and career-tech offerings. With their focus on inventiveness and collaboration, they also offer new ways of looking at classroom or learning-space design. To showcase the composition and variety of these facilities, Education Week is asking educators to post short videos of their schools' maker spaces to YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram over the next month, using the hashtag #ShowUsYourMakerSpace. (Photos are OK, too.)"

"Last week I laid out 3 Untapped Social Media Resources for Teachers. This week we take a look at how to leverage social networks for students.  My sister is a senior in high school. Whenever we spend time together I ask her about "what the kids are into these days?" She is right in the heart of the age range for kids who use social media the most (13-18 yrs old). Our conversations give me a sense of how kids are using social media and her thoughts on using it for learning, or even if there is a place for it. She tells me all the time that she's "addicted" to her phone, just like most adults. Most of her time is spent on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. She and her friends are sending photos, snaps and videos back and forth all day long. That is their world. They are continually capturing what is happening around them and sharing it with each other. And we have the data to back her up. "

"Social media storytelling tool Storify finally untethered itself from the desktop on Wednesday with the launch of a free iPad app. Like the web-based version of Storify, which has been used by news organizations such as the New York Times and Al Jazeera, the app makes it easy to scroll through and assemble Tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook photos and Instagram photos in a social media timeline. Its drag-and-drop interface translates perfectly to the iPad."

"IFTTT (If this, then that) has been around on the web for a couple of years now, but has now come up with its own iOS app. This is a free service that lets you automate actions within your iPhone. This is great service if you use apps such as Dropbox, Evernote, Instagram, Twitter etc. "

"PicCollage is one of my favorite Android and iPad apps. It is a free that allows you to quickly arrange pictures, video, text, and stickers into collages. From the app you can share your collage to Google Drive, Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, and many other file sharing services. In the video below I demonstrate how to use it without creating a PicCollage account. Below the video I have five ideas for using in your classroom"

"Images are a vital element of social media. Set a photo with screwy dimensions as your profile pic or cover photo, and you've immediately set the tone all wrong. But don't worry - we took a look at the optimum image sizes for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn, so you can make sure your profiles and content look as good as they possibly can."