Social Media is a creative virtual space, where people interact, share, and exchanges information. Ideas are placed in the virtual world of communities and networks, in this point, various applications have been created to suffice the people's need to express themselves. People all over the world, are now connected in many different retrospects.
Education has already started shifting into the side of social media, way before the pandemic hits. Many millennial and Gen-Z educators use social media to their advantage. Well-known applications like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, Tiktok, and more are used widely to spread learning among the teaching community. It has its pros and cons, but at the very end of the day, teachers do tend to learn on alternative learning paths to make their workload at ease. Students at the same time, spend more time in the virtual world, and learning has shifted dramatically on this side for everyone can now get information with just a click of a button.
Educators are now limited to how they should present themselves on social media. Again! teachers are human and are allowed to exercise free will but at the very end of the day, we are compelled to act a certain degree of caution for our digital footprint is placed out there.
Here are some details to know, if you are a teacher and planning to create a social media presence.
1. Know the Purpose
We all have our private social media account, and it is used to connect to our family, friends, and more. Therefore creating a social media profile for teachers should be different from our personal social media. Our social media presence as a teacher should be based on our objective to build connections to our students, it is important to navigate your social media presence on a professional and purposeful note.
2. Consider Appropriation
Appropriation is one of the basic keys to a successful social media presence. Many platforms have regulations on the appropriations of content. As teachers, our social media presence should be appropriate, rule-abiding, and base on our educational objective. Evaluate and segregate contents base on the importance and social media scales. Know as well your target audience to properly provide meaningful content. Surveying the demographic of your a
3. Understand Privacy and Security
In a digital world, privacy and security are necessary. Getting hacked or invaded by malicious comments or remarks can not be avoided. Our teacher presence in social media must be a balance of strictness, appropriation, and approaches. Allow your viewers (students, parents, and other teachers alike) to view a safe and sacred place to build connections.
4. Digital Literacy
Learning the basic digital aspect of the media you plan to create should be initiated. For your reference, my blog is all about my life experience as I teacher, I could not just write whatever I want. So I enrolled myself in self-access modules about blogging, SEO, media presence, and more. I recommend the same thing for teachers reading this post, no matter what type of social media platform you use still find a way to learn and understand the digital aspect.
5. Maintain a level of Sociability
The major goal of social media is connectivity, community, and communication. Across the wide spectrum of social media platforms out there it is vital that the one we are trying to build as educators moves around those criteria. Whether you are using your social media presence to inform, communicate, or create a space for educators like you; sociability is the key to its success.
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