"Loud & Proud" w/the Buffs
With the first weeks of school now long gone, it's time to start sharing all the things that are happening in your classrooms. At this morning's highschool faculty meeting, this theme continued, with the call to share out in the Digital Publication "The Stampede" that is being student produced. In addition, this sharing out while being "Loud and Proud' is shown on the Elementary's campus wide use of twitter and custom hashtags. This idea of sharing and telling our story has begun, so how can you tell your classrooms story? By being loud and proud, casting a wide net, reaching a larger audience, showcasing your teaching & your students' learning. One easy way to do all of this....social media.....I know some of you might be hestiant so here are some how-tos and 101s for the beginners, and experts alike.
#What's a hashtag?
Adding a “#” to the beginning of an unbroken word or phrase creates a hashtag. When you use a hashtag in a Tweet or Instagram, it becomes linked to all of the other Tweets that include it. Including a hashtag gives a Tweet context and can give a conversation longevity. The great thing about hashtags is they work across different social media platforms. They are searchable as well in each platform. If I create a hashtag and then use it, and share it out, the social platform will then create a collection with every mention of this particular hashtag. Anyone can create their own hashtag, but for a hashtag to work it should be catchy, short & concise, clear, & relaetable.
@mention_me
So if you can think of the hashtags create a collection of digital conversations, using the @ symbol are all the people/businesses/schools having the conversations using the hashtags. Your @name is often referred to as your "handle." You can create your own handle and be as funny...serious...or creative as your want to be and change it as often as you like too. Some people use their name as their handle but others don't. You can find me on twitter with the handle @architectness. Feel free to follow me to see what I have to say. It's a way I choose to share technology education tips & grow while following innovators in the field. Each time you post something on social media and you want to include someone else, just "mention" them using their handle. In effect, you have included your followers in the conversation and theirs-reaching even farther than the classroom walls.
Okay so that's the 101 on using hashtags and mentions, now to some of the social media platforms.
"The Gram"
Instagram is an image based sharing media platform. In the education world, the predominate users are Librarians, and Art Teachers. Anything that shares your message visually. Within the platform you still have the ability to hashtag your photo and add any mentions. Instagram also has some limited photo editing such as adding filters like the image here, some mild cropping, and captions. Librarians can share out their newest additions to the collections. Artists can share and promote their work that can be viewed time and time again.
Can I get Retweet?
Probably one of the largest sharing platforms today is twitter...it can really do so much and the sharing capabilities can be customized at will. In education, book clubs/discussions can be take place while at different locations. Students could participate, if set up correctly tweets and followers can be moderated. So you can control the privacy and safety within the twitter-sphere. One of the best things about twitter in my opinion is the character limitation. Each post is limited to 140 characters forcing the post to be concise. In a post use the @ symbol with the twitter handle such as @architectness to "mention me." Use the # symbol to allow a collection of the conversations that occur. And use the "retweet option to share a tweet to your followers that someone else posted, while giving credit to the original tweet, its like copyright....right?
Facebook it
Going way back is Facebook, most of use know or have used Facebook, but have you used it professionally, that might be different. You can have groups for your school clubs, share out celebrations with your friends and moderate everything from posts to group members. Facebook will work with mentioning people without the @ symbol, and will essentially tag people. The 140 character limit is gone making the possibility of longer posts, depending on what your trying to achieve this could be your sharing platform. One feature that exists in Facebook is the going "Live" option, you can film on devices such as events in extra curricular activities. I wont go into too much detail with Facebook since this is one who has been around for quite a while, even if your not a user, you probably know a user....
There's the 101...I'll give a shout out to Mr. Michelawizc who created a video message and put it on our new You Tube Channel, check it out! We are going Loud and Proud with the Herd!
