Our 21st century learners communicate through social media daily. This is their number one way to stay communicated and on the loop with everything that interest them. Social media is making its way to education in order to help teachers teach the way our new generation best learns, by creating and personalizing their learning. In this posts I will talk about the pros and cons of Screencast-O-Matic, Instagram, and Flipagram, my experience with the tools, and ways to use it in the classroom.
Even though I did not had a personal Instagram account I do have save on my favorites links Instagram users accounts that I follow. I personally like using Instragram to learn about destinations and places that I want to visit, but I have never used it for my classroom until now. Instagram is an online photo sharing app that is available to download in all types of devices. It also allows users to share their photo with hashtags so people can find it according to topics and it allows for others to comment on the photo and "like" it. Most of all, Instagram is a way of communicating and sharing with others through photos. Some of the positives to using Instagram for learning is the easy way that students can share images with each other. The negative is that Instagram does login the places the picture was taken, so make sure that feature is disable in settings before posting. I teach elementary level students, so for that age range I think is best for the teacher to have a one public account and share it with the class, that way everyone can post pictures and have access to the same account. Students can insert pictures of their field trips, projects, school events, daily work and much more, it will be like their own personal yearbook and is another form of communicating with parents, especially those parents that can't make it to school events. The teacher can also post photos of places and people students are learning in a certain subject and have a discussion or write about the photo. Another way to use this tool is in reading, the class can post photographs to represent what the character might be feeling, doing, or thinking or photographs a character might post if he/she had an Instagram account. I created an Instagram post to showcase the students' products during our Multicultural Night.
I have used multimedia videos created by others in order to learn how to do something, but I never created one until now. Screencast is a screen-capture service that lets you record your screen, yourself, or both at the same time using a webcam. You can record yourself while explaining, editing, manipulating, creating, or working on your computer screen. Screencast-O-Matic is free to use, the free application lets you record uploads limited for 15 minutes or you can upgrade and pay $15 a year to receive more editing and distribution functions. The downfall to Screencast is that once the video is published there is no way to edit it, you have to start a new recording. Overall the tool is very simple to use, one has to download the software which takes a couple of minutes, and after that you are ready to record. Another thumbs up for this tool is that it lets you crop the screen to the size you need, without having to close tabs you don't want to show in the video.
This tool is great to record steps for students on how to use a technology tool such as creating a slide presentation, how to search the internet, how to share work through Drive, and any other topic you have taught the whole class how to do but you know it will take more than one time for students to feel comfortable doing it on their own. Instead of explaining or showing something twenty times, students can access your recordings and learn at their own pace or simply need a refresher. The tool can also be use by students to record their understanding of their learning or by the teacher to explain a missed assignment to absent students. Screencast-O-Matic is definitely a tool I will use in the future in my classroom.
I used Screencat-O-Matic to show my students how to create a Google Slide Presentation.
Flipagram
Again my first time using this tool, but was excited to learn how easy is to use. Flipagram is a tool to easily crate slideshows with photos that can be uploaded from a device. The user can control the speed of the slide show, add music or narration, and basically tell a story with photos. Best of all Flipagram is free to use and it does not have to be share on social media, students can just easy store their creations in their private gallery in the technology tool they're using. It also connects to Instagram, so it gives students another chance to use Instagram in the classroom and learn best practices and gather ideas from other Flipagram users. The only downside is it does not provide a tutorial, but is simple enough that one is not needed. Students can use this in the classroom to create animated slideshows to showcase what they have learned in class or retell a story. The teacher can use it to showcase students' exemplary work or make a quick slideshow of a field trip and post to Instagram to share with parents in that moment. For me the tools was easy to use and kid friendly.
I created a Flipagram to showcase my school Multicultural Event and shared it on Instagram.
Bibliography:
Facebook, & Google. (2015, March 26). Mr P's ICT blog - Tech to raise standards! Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://mrparkinsonict.blogspot.com/2015/03/making-most-of-flipagram-in-classroom.html
Hudson, H. (2017, July 04). 10 Surprising Ways to Use Instagram in the Classroom. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.weareteachers.com/10-surprising-ways-to-use-instagram-in-the-classroom-2/
Leppla, M. (2018, February 01). Flipagram. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/app/flipagram
Moore, A. (2012, June 07). Using Instagram in the Classroom. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://prezi.com/fvbrbbznr7ee/using-instagram-in-the-classroom/
Shannon Holden. (2014, December 05). Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://digitallearningtree2.com/flipagram-in-the-classroom/
