How can you use Twitter in the classroom, for class bonding and for homework assignments? How do you increase parental involvement with Facebook or position your school in an innovative way with social media? These and other questions are addressed in the book 'Social media in primary school, the teacher makes the difference'. It is a publication of Mijn Kind Online, edited by Remco Pijpers and was published last week.
The book is intended as a source of inspiration and contains 21 best practices from mainly lebanon telegram data teachers who have devised and implemented all kinds of inventive educational applications of social media. As soon as you hold the book in your hands, the shape immediately stands out. It is large (larger than A-4 format) and is full of drawings and photos of the children involved in the examples. The best practices are in the form of interviews, which makes the book read almost like a magazine.
The book is practical in nature. It starts with a step-by-step plan that prevents readers from just 'doing something with social media'. It encourages you to think thoroughly in advance about what you want to achieve as a school. The plan contains 6 steps:
Formulate your objective and expectations. For example, school profiling, exchanging information with other professionals and organisations for the purpose of professionalising teachers, promoting contact between school and parents or supporting education.
Set priorities. Avoid starting too much at once, which could make your project unmanageable. The advice is to either choose one main goal or to order the goals. You can be pragmatic (what is feasible first?) or you can start from principles (what does the school consider most important given the mission and educational vision?).