Using Instagram in the Classroom

I was looking around for ways that instagram could be used for educational purposes and found this website (http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/instagram-classroom-student-activity-ideas.shtml) that suggested some ways that it could be used educationally. The five ideas were: 

1. Take a picture of students re-creating a famous piece of art. 

2. Explore a moment in history by imitating a vintage photo from the public domain.

3. Ask students to act as photojournalists at a school function.

4. Make a scientific record of a classroom experiment or school science fair.

5. Let students explore their identities.

Some of these idea's like explore a moment in history by imitating a vintage photo from the public domain or take a picture of students re-creating a famous piece of art are good ideas because they can tie into history.  These are the type of ideas that popular technology such as instagram can be used for. By giving kids the ability to use instagram will more likely push them to get their work done. The only thing that I did not like was the idea of letting students explore their identities. I feel like that is just giving the kids an excuse to just use instagram for fun and not use it for learning. 

Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing website and mobile application. Since school aged children are so technology savvy it makes sense for teachers to use Instagram to their benefit. Instagram is a simple and easy  way to use and the fact that it is free is also a great thing, All the students have to do is make an account, follow the classes Instagram page and there they can see whenever the teacher post assignments. Teachers can post homework for kids on it or even post the notes from the class. By the teachers posting documents through images from class on Instagram kids are more likely to check or use it as a resource. Instagram can also be a great way to alert kids when they are on vacation, have missed class for doctors appointments or music lessons, also when they are just not in school,  about things they have to do or work they missed. Not only can kids use it for things they missed but they also can use it as a everyday resource whenever they are doing work.

Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing website and mobile application. Most people know it as a social networking site where you can share pictures. You can open an account, blog, share through twitter, etc.  Not only is it just a place where you can go and post pictures but it is also a place where you can get pictures. It is easy to use, you can download pictures without having an account and going through the copyright issues. I can see educational purposes for Flickr in both the classroom and research. Over the semester I will be getting into some of these different purposes.

Introduction to Flickr/Instagram

My name is Rakeem Christmas welcome to my blog. Like many of you I am a first year graduate student in the IDD&E program. I look forward to getting to know more about your topics. The topic that I chose was Flickr/Instagram.

Per Wikipedia

Flickr: (pronounced "flicker") is an image hosting and video hosting website, and web services suite that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an online community, the service is widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media

Per Wikipedia

Instagram:  is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.[7] A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. Users can also apply digital filters to their images. The maximum duration for Instagram videos is 15 seconds.

This is the internet definition version of Flickr/Instagram but through the course of my blogging I hope to give you a more definite definition of how to use these platforms in various setting with other social networks.