Tech and Social Media in the Classroom

This week in our Internet for Educators class (#I4Ed) we talked about ways to use social media in the classroom. In Monday's class, we had Tyler Letkeman who is an English teacher from Vincent Massey Collegiate in Brandon present to us about how he uses technology in his classroom in a meaningful way. On Wednesday, we had Kirsten Thompson (familiar face!) and Andrew Mead call into our class using Zoom and discuss using social media in the classroom.

Tyler Letkeman

He described how he does writers workshop in his classes and makes the work authentic and gives it purpose. Letkeman uses writers workshop to introduce students to the craft of being an author - the goal is publication and writing for an audience, not for grades. He uses BLURB to publish the works into a book that is added to the school library for other students to read. Knowing their stories will have an audience after its written, students are wanting to do their best work. I thought this was a great way to have students feel engaged and that their writing as a purpose. I remember many times when as a student I've wondered why I had to write that paper, or what purpose the assignment had. Letkeman's ideas still has his students practicing different forms of writing that they likely wouldn't write in their spare time, but it gives them a reason to do the work, and do it well.

Letkeman used Shakespeare as an example topic of ways to integrate technology in the classroom. He would use a quiz website, Quizlet, to help students memorize Shakespearean language. It made it more fun to learn the terminology, than be stumped by the words they came across in the plays. Quizzlet would provide a leaderboard available to students to see who was answering the questions the fastest. Quizlet will also host"trivia" battles live in a classroom, where students compete as a team to answer the questions the fastest. I really enjoyed trying this out during his presentation, but it can be challenging to do unless everyone has a device to use. In senior years, I think it's more likely that everyone has a cellphone to use, but I suppose it's possible to do in early years too - best to book a computer lab or an iPad/laptop cart I think.

Overall, I enjoyed hearing Tyler Letkeman's ideas about using technology in the classroom. I appreciated that all his activities and ideas made the learning meaningful and fun to the students. These activities help increase engagement and keep students interested in the work. Remember that technology is there to make our jobs easier. It may take some creative ideas, and thankfully we have someone like Tyler to share his ideas with us!

Kirsten and Andrew

Both Kirsten and Andrew spoke of the pros and cons of social media use in the classroom. They both advised to be careful and think about what you post on your class or school social media page. This includes photos of children, where only one face is blurred. Parents (or others viewing your page) may dig into what reasons there may be to have a face blurred. They recommended only sharing photos where no faces could be seen, or where students have their back to the camera.

Blocking websites on computers was mentioned in our conversation.. Schools would filter and block websites from students, but isn't it our job to educate and prepare students for the real world? I think so! What good does blocking websites have for students? Sure, maybe could help keep them on task, but I believe that is all a part of digital citizenship and using the internet responsibly. I think by not blocking websites, it gives students an opportunity to learn when it is an appropriate time to use the internet or not. Kirsten pointed out that digital literacy is part of the ICT curriculum in schools, so it is part of our job to teach students about these things.

Social Media in my Classroom

Before our conference, we were asked to arrange ourselves (people in the class) in the hallway as a spectrum showing how we felt about using social media in the classroom. I put myself leaning towards the "yes, I would use social media" side. However, I struggled to figure out ways I would use social media.

I think it's a very valuable resource for students, and that they could do great things with it. I could see myself having a class/"music room" social media, but I think it would be hard to narrow down my audience. No way am I running a social media account for every class I teach (if there are 2 classes per grade level, and I teach 7 grades... No thanks), but I feel parents wouldn't want to follow an account where they are not always seeing their children or their children's classmates.

Many of the music education resources I have found so far seem directed to a senior years audience, and not early years. Or, they are thinking of music education outside of the public school system (private studio teaching, etc). So far, they have been about teachers using social media to connect with parents, and not students reaching out to parents. I found this article published on Music Ed Magic about using social media and websites to communicate important dates and activities with parents.


I found this video on YouTube, and I think it's the most suitable use of technology or social media for students in the music classroom. It uses the example of middle school band, but I think a similar idea could work for early years students playing recorder, ukulele, mallet instruments, and other instruments. I think it has great points about connecting to student's technology use and practicing self-assessment.

My best idea is to have students create posts for me, and I will post it for them on a teacher-run account that their parents will see. Likely, it would be best if I created a hashtag for each class, and have parents follow their child appropriate hashtag. That way, they are not seeing everything I post, just the posts that matter to them (the ones that their child is in). By having students create the posts, it has them engaging with social media with an adult's help. I would have a class checklist to make sure I keep track who has gotten a turn to post. I can see time being a problem with having this system work, however. Typically, I only have a class for 30 minutes every other day. The time that a student would take creating a post takes away from the limited amount of time I have with them.  I will have to think about this more and see what would work best.