Pinning & tubing education

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While considering social media in education, I thought about my local school district being a "Google district", meaning that the schools use Google applications for teachers, faculty, and students including Google classroom, Google Drive, Gmail, and more. I imagine teachers in a Google district who wish to incorporate social media into their lessons would enjoy the ease of using social network sites that permit login through Google. Gmail is also a common email provider outside of K-12 education, which means tons of college faculty members and students have Google accounts as well and use Google logins elsewhere. 

Pinterest allows logging in through Google, but before now I never considered using the platform for school. (This realization did not even occur to me while creating a project showcasing Pinterest!) Its collaborative boards could be fantastic for group projects or peer feedback in the comment sections. Boards can be made secret so only collaborators can access them, which could help ease the privacy concerns of students. University of Southern California's Rossier blog outlined 14 Ways Students Can Use Pinterest in the Classroom, and their ideas astound me! The platform also appears to be user-friendly, which is a bonus for less tech-savvy students and faculty. The most obvious use of Pinterest to me is art-based projects and crafts, but I can see connections with other content areas, especially after reviewing the post from USC. Gathering research and ideas for any course; collecting individual work; virtual exploration with pictures and trivia; creative journaling; sharing and reflecting on news; and pinning music instead of art are all great uses of the site that can be wonderful additions to lessons for middle school, high school, or college students. I love how the USC blog post keys into the education buzzword "differentiation"! From my use of the platform with program planning at the library, I've seen not only photos pinned but also videos and websites. Imagine the possibilities!

YouTube also allows Google sign-in for its accounts, which again opens the social media platform to Google district faculty and students and anyone who happens to have a Google account. Back when I was in high school we filmed a couple movie projects the old-fashioned way with a video camera, but now everyone has a video camera on their smartphones. Filmed projects of any kind can be uploaded to YouTube for viewing online. Comments can be turned on or off. Like Pinterest with its "secret" option, YouTube lets creators determine visibility of videos, thus protecting privacy. To circle back around, students could even pin their own YouTube videos or other videos relevant to topics onto a Pinterest board. 

For appropriate use of these social media platforms in education to work, students need to be taught basic communication and evaluative measures. Internet etiquette is highly important in today's digital world and would be imperative to using Pinterest or YouTube with classes. Students would, of course, need to be educated on how to evaluate websites and other sources before trusting the information enough to pin or post it. Teachers and professors also must be aware of their institution's social media policies and transparent with students about how the platforms would be incorporated into the classes. I've seen that this is possible through using Flipgrid in one of my UB courses... yet another platform that allows Google sign-in.

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