Social Media Sunday!

Are you wrapping up your school year? Have you explored the learning possibilities offered by social media use in the classroom? Let's spend today, what I'm deeming Social Media Sunday, to brush up on some social media strategies or find some professional development opportunities to take part in this summer to ensure we exercise social media use in the classroom next school year.

We are all familiar with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and several other popular social media sites. However, there are several social media platforms that naturally lend themselves to the classroom. I'm going to share just a couple of them with you in today's blog post.

Have you tried Edmodo? Edmodo is a social media platform designed especially for teachers, students, and parents to effectively integrate social media use into the classroom. Accounts can be set up for free (as teachers, we like free!) and there are a multitude of free resources available in the Edmodo Help Center to assist you in getting started. One of the cool resources available is the Edmodo in Action link in the Help Center - this link helps new users to determine how they can best integrate Edmodo into their content area, including how to use for specific assignment types.

What about a NING? I have effectively used a NING as a social media platform for one of the professional organizations I am in and this is a great platform! The options available through a NING are amazing. From creating an instant social community for your classroom to allowing social integration with a number of other social media platforms, a NING can offer you several resources for creating your social classroom. A NING does cost a little money; however, the cost can be covered if your class includes a lab or resource fee and the cost truly is minimal. Check it out today!

Here are just a couple more resources you can use to effectively integrate social media into your classroom lessons and activities. As always, I look forward to hearing from you and if you have used either of the platforms presented in today's post, please share your experiences with me. I value the feedback from my visitors!

Happy Social Media Sunday to everyone! Now get out there and explore social media!