Educators of today face many challenges. Students live in a face-paced, information-saturated world. How do educators keep kids engaged, informed, and connected? Creating your own digital presence as a teacher is key to answering this question.
If you aren’t sure where to start here are 5 tools that can increase your digital presence.
Blogging
Blogging
Blogging is an excellent way to tell the story of your classroom. There are many platforms that work for a classroom blog. We love Blogger, Wordpress, or Edublogs. Blogger is connected to your Google account if you have one. Some teachers find that with blogging they do not need a website.
Check out these class blogs for inspiration.
Facebook
If you are not big on blogging, use a Facebook Page to communicate events, student work, and ideas. It is super easy to set up an account. Many teachers find their Facebook pages work well for them because they can update their feed right from their phone. Privacy settings can be tailored to suit your particular needs. Check out these classroom Facebook Pages to get some good ideas.
Second Grade Classroom
Twitter
Twitter is being overtaken by educators! Use Twitter for yourself professionally to connect with other educators and ideas. You can use Twitter for your class by creating your own class hashtag. Simply choose a word for your hashtag and tell your kids what it is. For example, you could use #mrssmithclass and use it for class discussions.
Instagram
Now more than ever kids are into Instagram. This generation has been dubbed the most photographed generation ever. Kids use photos to express emotion, status, and experiences. Use Instagram as a way to showcase student work, literary themes, science experiments, field trips and more.
YouTube Channel
Create playlists on content that support your teaching and require students to watch those videos prior to coming to class to increase intervention time and mini lessons. YouTube channels and playlists are great, because you can simply add to them throughout the year.
A Website
Teacher websites provide important links and information to students. We like Weebly and Google sites. Both platforms are free and easy to use. Here are some great teacher websites to check out.
Written by Jenny Krzystowczyk
@jennykbps
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