Social Media and Your Digital Tattoo

Last week, I had the pleasure of partnering up with the counseling department in Bedford High School's first annual Social Media Awareness Day. I must say that not only was it fun to help organize the day, but is was also very rewarding.

Last year the counseling department came to me with an idea to work together to help remind students (and staff) about how to handle social media in showcasing the 'goods' and the 'bads'. Throughout the school year, we got together in meetings to brainstorm what we exactly wanted to accomplish. We knew that there was going to be a presentation but we wanted to make the day even more than just that.

When it came to the presentation, we knew that we did not want to just lecture about the negatives of social media. Instead, we wanted our message to come out that it is ok and encouraged for students and staff to use social media with keeping precautions in mind.

To open this Prezi presentation in a new window, CLICK HERE.

We also wanted to make it real and personal for the students. With that, we surveyed our staff at BHS as well as all of our freshmen and sophomore students. That is right, we surveyed almost 600 students and staff!

We asked similar questions to both staff and students so that we would be able to make comparisons amongst each group. The results were very informative and helpful. Not only did we share the results in the presentation, but the counseling department also created posters to showcase in the main hallway.

We also decided that since we wanted to highlight how social media can have a positive impact on others (and we did not want students to get 'bored' of listening to Mrs. Puffer and I) we interviewed some teachers in the building. We asked them how social media has had a positive impact on them. It was really interesting to hear what the teachers had to share - personal and professional examples are both given in this video. To view this video in a new window, CLICK HERE. 

At the end of the presentation, we highlighted the YouTube video, "Look Up" by Gary Turk. If you have not yet seen this video, then you must take a look at it. This video really makes you think about your 'screen time'. We decided to challenge the entire BHS community and 'Look Up' during the lunch block that day. If you would like to view this video in a different window, CLICK HERE.

As students walked into the commons, some of the National Honor Society members as well as the BHS counselors reminded students of the challenge to not look at a device for 25 minutes and to be present.

These students actually took it another step further and placed all of their phones in the middle of the table while they were hanging out socializing and eating during their lunch break.

All in all, it was a great day! It was very refreshing hearing from teachers talking about how it either impacted the students or themselves in some way. The day would not have been possible without the Counseling Department - all the way from concept to reality. And a big kuddos to Ms. Puffer for helping give a great presentation. I know that I am already looking forward to next year.

Another GREAT Day to be a BULLDOG!

Pinning it Up at BHS

Last year, I wrote a blog post regarding how a group of teachers were using Pinterest to help create a 'Virtual Museum' with student work.  This was all managed by the teachers creating the board and pinning students projects to the board.  The big advantage to this was the fact that students did not need a Pinterest account to make this happen. (Click HERE to read that blog post)

However, this month, I have had the opportunity of helping students in two classes, Photography and Interior Design, use Pinterest to complete a project.  I am always excited when staff want to utilize tools such as social media with their students.


For those of you who do not know what Pinterest is you can watch this quick 90 second tutorial that I shared with the students prior to using the platform.

What I am most excited about is not that the fact that the teachers were using this social media platform, instead, I was excited that they were using the tool to enhance/improve their current projects.

Interior Design Class
Mrs. Shultz's main goal was for each student to have a board to share images that connected to a specific design style.  For instance, a student was responsible to find design items that pertained to Caribbean style.  Not only did students pin pictures of these items, they also provided a reason as to why they picked that project or why it connected to the specific design style.

This process proved to be a great way of collecting student ideas and thoughts.  Not only that but Mrs. Shultz was able to show all these examples to the class from one location as she did not have to worry about receiving different links to projects.

Click HERE to view the Pinterest Boards from class.

Photography Class
Originally, Mrs. Hogan wanted to do the same thing that Ms. Shultz did.  Ms. Hogan shared a board, called 'Environmental Portraits', with all of her students.  The purpose of this was for students to share images that they found online that they thought matched the theme of Environment.  Again, once a student found an image, they attached a description as to why they pinned that picture.

Since then, she has taken this social media platform to the next level.  She has had all of her students create a board, that is shared with her, so that students can create their own portfolio of work for the class.  In past years, students would complete their assignments and take pictures.  However, these pictures would be stored on a school hard drive that only Mrs. Hogan owns and/or on the students' school network account.  Now, anyone that has the link to their photography board, can see the great work that they are completing for the class.

Lastly, I believe Mrs. Hogan has also started created other boards as a means of providing resources for her students on particular content.

Click HERE to view the Pinterest Boards from class.

How this as Accomplished:

• Students got parental permission to create a school Pinterest account prior to using the social media platform
• Students created their account
• Students followed their teacher (teacher using a school Pinterest account)
• Teacher created a board and shared that board with their students via email
• Students were shown how to pin to a board (inside Pinterest as well as on a regular website)

So there you have it, a couple different ways in which Pinterest can be used in the class.  As always, if you think you want to use Pinterest in your classroom, or you want to learn more about it, just stop on by room 222 and I can assist!  

Happy Pinning...