16 Ways Teachers Can Use Social Media in the Classroom

I found most of these ideas can be used with either Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter unless otherwise noted.

• Track student work over the course of the year. Take pictures of the progression of a student project or track their learning.
• Use it to post homework. Ask them to write about the significance of a posted photo — perhaps a map, person, or document.
• Share classroom news with parents and faculty. Showcase student work.
• Remind students of upcoming class events.
• Create out of class study groups using specific hashtags. Give the group a question and ask each member to contribute to the hashtag.
• Flip the classroom by posing questions and asking the students to contribute. Students will be ready to discuss the questions in class.

• Send out an occasional extra credit question.
• Share memories of field trips or extracurricular activities.
• Create a tweet as a literary character. Give the students a topic and asks them to tweet as the character would.
• Create a tweet as a historical character. Give the students a current event and ask them to tweet as a historical figure would have.
• Use Instagram to feature a student of the week.
• In language class, use Snapchat to take a picture of an item and label it in the appropriate language.
• Take videos of real-life examples of the content as a study guide or ask students to identify the video based on the content.
• Ask students to annotate an image provided by you, identifying key elements on a map or a picture.
• Use Twitter for extended office hours. Advise students that they can tweet you at certain times of the day.
• Use Twitter to take a poll using a certain hashtag.