The Power of Snapchat in Schools

In education, it's as important as ever that educators continue to grow and meet student's where they are. In order for our lessons to best "stick," we must understand our students worlds, their likes/dislikes, free time activities, and how they prefer to communicate. When we know these things, we can be creative in our lesson planning and make our content come to life!

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms used by teens and adults today. The app allows users to send and receive short "visual" messages from each other that disappear in time. The "Snaps" can include a picture with text, audio, filters, drawings, geofilters, and bitmojis.

If new to Snapchat, want a more detailed explanation, or you just want to see how it works, CLICK HERE for more information.

Students and adults alike a lot of fun with Snapchat and have gotten very creative with it over the years. When used appropriately and professionally, it can be a fantastic tool for learning and collaboration.

In 2016, Matt Miller, founder of Ditch That Textbook, wrote about 15 ways to use Snapchat in the classes and schools which is awesome! After engaging in a terrific #tlap chat in July 2017, many educators shared ways they use Snapchat in the classroom which inspired this post. One of the people that I met through that chat was Tisha Poncio, Innovative Learning Coach in Texas. She and I decided to collaborate on a post and share other unique ways you can use the power of Snapchat to increase learning, engagement and excitement in schools!

1. Classroom/Organization Snapchat: As educators, we are always looking for professional ways to communicate with our students and parents but no one wants to use their personal social media account to do so nor should they. Why not create a separate Snapchat account for your classroom, department, club/organization, or even sports team to share all the great things that are happening?! Meet them where they are. This year in our business department, we will be using Snapchat to highlight student projects, promote our school store, and showcase the community service our FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) are doing. You never have to follow students back, everything you choose to share gets posted to your story for others to view, and it builds the brand you are proud of in a positive light. Follow us @ "dtbusiness" to see what we are up to this school year.


2. QR & Snapcodes: Did you know that Snapchat has a built in QR reader?! No longer do you have to download an app that reads QR codes. How can you use this in the classroom? Scavenger Hunts! Fact: Kids sit most of the day in schools. Why not take that biology lesson on squirrels and spice it up a bit. Send them on a quest in teams around the school to find Snapcodes that take them to videos, pictures, and websites. What is a Snapcode? It is Snapchats version of a QR code! No longer do you need to go to a website to make them and print. They can also be shared digitally.
     
3. #BookSnaps & Twitter Chats: BookSnaps have taken the education learning World by storm this Summer! A BookSnap is when a user takes a picture of a passage in a book they like with Snapchat, marks the image up with drawings, filters, and bitmojis, saves the image, then shares it digitally with others to learn and debate from. To learn more about these and how to create one, CLICK HERE and follow the "Mother of BookSnaps" Tara Martin. When having students read an article or section of a book, have them create a BookSnap of the most impactful snippit to them, save it, and share it on Twitter using your class hashtag. This can be incorporated into a Twitter chat discussion in class! See below on the reasons why you should create Booksnaps.
    
   


4. App Smashing Snapchat with Flipgrid and Shazam: Students love using all of the filters, stickers, and bitmojis when making Snaps. Why not appsmash while having fun?! Let's say you want students to respond to a question towards the end of the lesson. Instead of having them write it, why not have them make a 10 second video using Snapchat and the filters? When done, have them save the video and upload it to your class Flipgrid.
   
   There, as a class or individually, you can watch, listen, and learn from everyone's responses. Powerful! Also, the app Shazam (ability to instantly recognize any song in seconds) is now built into Snapchat if you hear a song you like but can't figure out the title of it.


5. Creating a PLN: When Tisha and I brainstormed this post, she mentioned "many educators are using Snapchat for fun, but it can be a powerful tool to connect with others to provide encouraging and thought provoking material." At times, teachers can feel isolated in the profession and connecting with other like-minded educators can help them remember their WHY and grow on a deeper level.


6. Geofilters: Want students to work on their  creativity and
   
   design skills? Geofilters are screen overlays that capture where you are or what you're up to in a Snap! Students can create them for the community, school, birthdays, parties, weddings, stores, and restaurants. They could make for a great outside the classroom project or partnership with a business

Have more ideas on how to use Snapchat innovatively inside schools? Please leave a comment below!

5 Creative Ways To Use Weebly In Schools

Weebly gives millions of people a surprisingly easy and affordable way to create a website that is as unique as they are. With a Weebly site, people can start their own business, communicate with their clients, showcase their achievements, and be an authority on personal and professional interests.

In 2015, Matt Bergman and I gave a presentation at the PETE & C (Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo & Conference) to showcase how Weebly can be used by educators and students to create organizational websites, digital e-folios, teacher class websites, summative projects, and district resources for schools. Here is the link to the (FREE GOOGLE DOCS RESOURCE) sheet from our presentation. Please explore the examples and let me know if I can answer any questions for you regarding how you can use this awesome software in your classroom  to engage students in project based learning!  

Genius Hour Examples for High School

One of the biggest movements in education over the past several years has been that of Genius Hour. If you are not familiar with Genius Hour, it is a project in the classroom and sometimes in the workplace where students and employees are allowed to explore their own passions and wonders for a set amount of time. Teachers empower students by allowing them to pick a topic of their own, usually framed around an inquiry question, based on their own passions or wonders. One of the things I love about Genius Hour is that it is customizable to any teachers classroom and students. THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT/WRONG WAY TO DO THIS which makes it so fun!

• Learn more Genius Hour about HERE 
• FREE resources to get started and rubrics HERE

This past year (2016-17) in my Accounting I and Honors Accounting classes, I decided to "spice" things up a bit. Instead of teaching all accounting curriculum which can get dry at times, I challenged my students to research and or create something they are interested in or passionate about for a small amount of time. In the beginning of the school year, students brainstormed ideas, selected the topic they were most interested in, and began their research/project. Throughout the semester, there were several built-in work days for students to conduct research and work on their projects. Many of them found great joy in working on something they loved or wanted to know more about.

My key requirements for their final presentation was they had to present their research/work in a professional presentation and explain to the class how they grew from the process. They also had to create something that could be shared with those from around the world. Many of my students blew me away with the things they chose to work on and create! Projects ranged from video game creation, business websites, stop animation lesson, the history of special effects in movies, mediation for a month, and whether or not the lure of the Bermuda Triangle is real!

CLICK HERE to explore the outstanding projects my students did this year!

Many of the SAMPLE Genius Hour projects that my students and I found when trying to brainstorm ideas were for grades 3 through 6. Hopefully, if you teach older students and are interested in doing Genius Hour next year, these projects can serve as inspiration and generate ideas! Remember, YOU are a genius and the world needs your contribution!

Endless EdMagic With Flipgrid

If you weren't at ISTE following along via social media or were too exhausted at the end of the year to care about any new technology, chances are you haven't heard of Flipgrid yet. The software is as the kids say today, "LIT!" As Karly Moura states in her awesome blog post "15 ways to use Flipgrid in your classroom," Flipgrid is a video response platform where educators can have online video discussions with students or other educators. Teachers can provide feedback to students AND better yet students can provide feedback to one another. Flipgrid empowers and amplifies student voice. You create the topics. Students respond with video, and everyone engages!

Check out my EDUCATOR GRID that I created to better network and learn from fellow educators. I would love to hear your video responses about your "Best Educator Tip" you have to share with others!

Flipgrid has tons of videos to help you get started if you are a newbie HERE.

What I want to do in this post is build off of Karly's article and highlight more ways that Flipgrid can be used by educators, parents, administrators, and coaches alike inside and outside of the classroom.

1. Personalize PLN's: I couldn't help but notice on Twitter how many people at ISTE were "shocked" when they ran into someone in person that they chat with every week online. Flipgrid can help break the 140 character barrier and give people a deeper way to learn from each other using audio and visual. It will also build stronger and more meaningful relationships.

2. Flipped Twitter Chats: Twitter chats are one of the most powerful ways educators learn from each other today. With anything that has been around for a while, they get stale. Flipgrid can flip Twitter chats upside down by using video response to questions instead of text. Instead of having eight questions to respond to really fast while trying to read what everyone is typing, you can take your time, thoughtfully respond to a topic, then engage and debate with whomever you agree/disagree with.

3. Inspiration/Faculty Meetings: At the beginning of the school year, the principal usually gives an inspiring presentation filled with vision, goals, etc. Throughout the busy school year, these visions and goals can get lost. Leaders can use Flipgrid to provide weekly/monthly inspirational videos for teachers. It can also be used to spark conversation before or after faculty meetings. Before to pose a question for all to think about. After to gather questions and answers faculty may have had but didn't get answers to.

 4. Administrator Feedback: As an aspiring administrator, I thought about how I could use this tool with the educators that I lead someday. Meaningful feedback to educators is often one of the things that is hardest for administraots to do because of time. With Flipgrid, leaders can offer feedback to teachers anytime, anywhere. Also, it can be used to share best practices within a school and to cultivate a culture of learning and growth.

5. Public Speaking: I have my students do a lot of public speaking in my classes. One of their comments to me at the end of the year is "we wish we had more time to practice our public speaking skills." With Flipgrid, you can inegrate public speaking into almost every unit. Students get to practice their facial expressions, voice control, language, etc. Also, with the classroom version, students can comment and give feedback on each others videos!

6. District/ParentCommunication: Community members and parents are always curious as to what's going on in the district and classrooms. Flipgrid is an excellent tool that allows leaders and teachers to share news through a creative way and take questions based on their videos.

7. Clubs/Sports: Clubs and sports teams can use Flipgrid for various things as well: Brainstorming ideas, sharing important news, getting community involvement, and creating rich discussions.

If you can think of any other ways Flipgrid can be used in or outside of classroom, please comment below. Flipgrid Fever is real!