The Social Media Myth
The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you're trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don't mistake social media for socializing. They're different -- just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different.
You don't even have to bring the most popular social media sites into your classroom. You can use Fakebook (1) or FakeTweet (2) as students work on this form of conversation. Edublogs (3), Kidblog (4), Edmodo (5), and more will let you use social media competencies and writing techniques. Some teachers are even doing "tweets" on post-it notes (6) as exit tickets. You can use mainstream social media, too.
Reasons why you should incorporate social media into your classroom activities
Before we talk social media, let's talk about the relevance of social media by taking a quiz. Which of the following is most likely to be true? ☐ Should we teach letter-writing in the classroom? Kids need to write letters and mail them.
