For the longest time, I questioned my younger sister’s addiction to Instagram: “It’s just a picture with some words, why is it so cool?”, “Are you seriously on Instagram AGAIN?” and my personal favorite, “Okay, I get you love this app and you really want to have a bunch of followers, but you CANNOT LET RANDOM OLDER MEN FOLLOW YOU”. Instagram is a deeply embedded social networking application that is all the rage amongst pre-teens, teenagers, young adults, celebrities, and more. Casey Neistat produced a quick, short and sweet, to the point video about the appeal of Instagram and the proper way to Instagram. (Cue me asking “there are rules to instagram”, “there is a wrong way to use it??) Well, apparently there is and now I am fully informed. Don’t get me wrong, I have an instagram, and have had one for some time now, but it was never my primary social media account. I hardly ever used it, until more recently. And now, I have a better understanding of why students are using it, and why it is so addicting that many students cannot sit through a two hour class without trying to sneakily check it. I can see many benefits to using the application in the classroom, and I hope to one day do so. Appealing to students interests and tailoring lessons to things they want to do is a great way to keep them engaged.
My only lasting concern with using an application of sorts in my classroom is of course making sure my students are being mature, good, digital citizens. I understand the more followers you have, the more “popular” you are in the Instagram world, but I fear too many students will blindly let anyone follow them, which could be dangerous. Nevertheless, guidelines could be required (like having them set their school profile to private), it could be used as a good learning opportunity to teach my students about digital citizenship and being safe online.
Niestat, Casey. (2012, October 12). Instagram i love you.
Retrieved from https://youtu.be/GacoqdKjVyE?list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp
My only lasting concern with using an application of sorts in my classroom is of course making sure my students are being mature, good, digital citizens. I understand the more followers you have, the more “popular” you are in the Instagram world, but I fear too many students will blindly let anyone follow them, which could be dangerous. Nevertheless, guidelines could be required (like having them set their school profile to private), it could be used as a good learning opportunity to teach my students about digital citizenship and being safe online.
Niestat, Casey. (2012, October 12). Instagram i love you.
Retrieved from https://youtu.be/GacoqdKjVyE?list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp