Picture This: Social media to improve Interpersonal Communication in the World Language Classroom

I have been using Instagram as a fun social app for a while now. And of course as soon as I could figure it out, I started brainstorming how I could use it in my world language classroom. Instagram is a social app for photos, where you post post pictures of which you and your friends can leave comments, tag friends, and hashtag as a certain subject.
Here’s a picture I posted from the recent ACTFL conference in Denver. There’s a few things you’ll see:

At the top lists my username, lelises, and the location I marked us in.

People who “like the picture” are next to the heart.

I have tagged one friend with the @ sign.

My comment, next to username lelises shows what I wrote about my own photo, “No taxi necessary.”

And I have classified the subject of the photo with a hashtag, #actfl.

My friend tagged in the photo commented.

Here’s a quick tutorial on the basics:

How can your students use this?

1. Taboo/10,000 Pyramid
After teaching vocabulary, have students post pictures up of certain items that you studied. The pictures can be difficult to guess, so you have them write a description in the target language underneath describing the object. If nobody guesses you can leave another clue. This can be done by the teacher or by the students. Here’s an example: (Please note, I used English here simply as an example.)

Don’t Beat ’em, Join ’em!: Cellphones Allowed!

Ian Jukes “committed me” a while ago.  We live in a time of exponential change, and education serves our students only if it prepares them to live in the world as productive citizens.  When we think of the real world, we don’t think of an isolated classroom containing barriers with no access to technology, or where its use is prohibited. Unfortunately, many schools are continuing to educate students in this manner.  Often, teachers are burdened with narrowing technology budgets and limited resources.  Most students have access to cell phones, which currently act a lot more like computers than phones. How can we see them as helpful to our classes rather than hindrances?

Take advantage of the fact that you have 10 or more “computers” in your classroom available for use at any moment, no training required!!

Here are are some useful and meaningful ways to use cellphones in the world language classroom:

1.     GoogleVoice: Save time and go green!  As an oral assessment, have students leave you a message by calling your GoogleVoicemail in class responding to a  prompt. Then, text or email back your feedback and score.