A teacher's guide to Facebook in the classroom

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Since its launch ten years ago, Facebook’s potential for use in the classroom has become undeniable. But how can teachers keep their private life private, while still making use of Facebook as a collaborative learning tool? 

Many people will rightly advise you that to expose your private life to students is to risk public humiliation. It could happen to anyone, anytime. A photo is put up on Facebook, it’s tagged with your name, the privacy settings aren’t as strict as they could be and there you are: on a lively night out, in provocative fancy dress, a bit worse for drink, and for all the world to see.

The teaching profession, in particular, is in the public eye and many teachers are finding that Facebook – and their pupils – are revealing much more about them than they’d expected.

But Facebook has the potential to create an open and supportive environment for the pupils, and allow you to get to know them in a whole different light, and to revolutionise the way homework is planned, completed and reported on.

It can also be a great tool for teachers’ professional development, providing a safe space for teachers to share their expertise and professional practice within and beyond the walls of the classroom.

But how can you make the most of Facebook in your classroom without falling into its traps? Our guide below will take you through the process, and hopefully give you a few exciting ideas to try in your own school.

Creating a profile
The first thing to do is create a new Facebook profile that you only use for school. Only include the information you want your pupils and colleagues to see. Set all your security levels to high.

Next, set up a fan page for your school. Fan pages allow you to distribute announcements, blog posts, events, assignments and more right into the live streams or 'News Feeds' of those that ‘like’ your page. This is better than using a personal profile because there is no need for parents or students to be your friends to get the updates, and it can really be used to develop an online community around your class or school.

Setting up groups and pages
For most teachers, pages and groups will be the two key tools of your communication hub.

A page is public, which means that anyone can view it. Anyone can like a page on Facebook, and students who do will see updates in their News Feed.
Groups enable you to communicate to a smaller audience and allow you to limit membership to only those you approve. Using a page or a group is a great way to use social media with your students without blurring the line between your professional and personal lives.

Facebook groups can be quickly created, with their access easily limited only to a form or year group. Pupils can be invited by email. Files can be uploaded by the group administrator, who can also begin debates using an inbuilt polling feature. Pupils can be directed to the group where they can easily access a set of resources for a specific subject, share links to resources and discuss revision assignments. 

Plus, when a teacher adds a new file, question or post, they are able to see how many group members have seen and read the item.

How to introduce Facebook to your school

• Get leaders on board – get your headteacher, senior leaders and governors to understand the benefits for learning, engagement and communication.
• Talk to ICT – identify and unblock Facebook access restrictions for teachers first so you can test ideas and projects with colleagues. Start simple – experiment with the use of a Facebook page or group where you can test the tools and technology.
• Privacy – if you are working directly with students, adjust your own privacy and security settings on Facebook and get them to do the same.
• Start outside the classroom – consider starting to use Facebook in an out of school hours learning activity like a sports team or drama group.
• Test ideas – use fellow staff members and pupils to explore what works and doesn’t work to develop and test your ideas across subjects to extend the reach of the initial project. Informally test and evaluate its impact.

EXCITING IDEAS!

• Use polling tools to set up a series of questions or debates for a group of pupils.
• Set up a Facebook page for each project you do with your students. You can post news, photos, videos, comments, competitions and information relevant to the project. The page’s Timeline will keep a record of it all, allowing you and your students to track back and access older content.
• Just in time for remembrance day… why not have your students create a comprehensive and interactive history of WW1, or indeed any other time period? Split your class into groups, have each group create a Facebook page, and then ask them to post relevant images, information, articles and other media to the page’s Timeline, pinned to the dates these major events occurred.
• Ask outside experts to chime in on your Facebook page – easier, quicker and cheaper than booking a school visit!
• Use Facebook for foreign language learning and partner your students up with pupils who speak different languages, from Spanish to Japanese. It’s easier than writing and sending letters and allows students to engage with their pen pals frequently and instantaneously outside of the classroom.
• Set up a Facebook group for your students' parents. The group acts as a central hub for information – so using the example of a school trip, you can use it to share relevant staff contact details, itineraries and maps. You can even use it to keep parents updated during the trip itself, for example by posting photos.
• Set up an event on Facebook to ensure your students never miss an upcoming exam or essay deadline. Invite all the relevant students to that event – they’ll receive a notification of the invitation and then when they accept or join the event, they’ll receive alerts when you or other members post information or update the event details. 
• Not really a Facebook tool, but inspired by it... Fakebook allows you to create a fake Facebook account for a book/film character or historical figure (it doesn't create an actual Facebook account). This is a much more inventive alternative to writing a standard biographical piece. There are lots of other tools/templates like Fakebook if it doesn't work for your particular needs. Students could even create their own in powerpoints and word documents.

More advice and an even greater range of exciting ideas and inspiration can be found in our article, Facebook in the classroom, available to purchase from our website.

Activities for outdoor learning this Autumn

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Image: gardeningforkids.com.au

Earlier this year, we published a blog post detailing some lovely outdoor activities to enjoy with your students in the Spring time. But, in case you haven't noticed, it's no longer Spring! Autumn is upon us and with it brings plenty of opportunities to get your class out in the crisp golden sunshine and kicking about in the leaves.

The resource sheets, activity ideas and online flash games featured below are all available from The Woodland Trust's fabulous Nature Detectives website. They're all completely free so we figured they wouldn't mind us sharing some of their wonderful ideas and resources with our readers! Simply follow the links to download. And don't forget that this is just a sample. We really recommend checking out their site for more Autumn activities and ideas.

ID tools and spotter sheets
Some brilliant resources here! Get your class outside and identifying Autumn leaves, fruits and seeds, twigs and more. My personal favourite resource is the hunt for animal tracks, as well as - one for the boys this one - an animal poo ID sheet! (It does stress to kids that they shouldn't touch the animal droppings). Other spotter sheets include nocturnal animals, minibeasts, birds, bramble and fungi. If you don't have access to a proper woodland in school, why not send some spotter sheets home as homework (optional or otherwise)?

Image: Rake's School, West Sussex

Conkers
The best part of Autumn in my humble opinion... hunting for conkers! Nature Detectives provides instructions on how to play conkers, plus a snazzy conker champion certificate and a cool horse chestnut tree fact sheet. There's also a recipe for making realistic-looking conkers out of chocolate (no actual cooking required - all you need is a fridge) which would be great for a classroom session on cooking and nutrition.

Den building
Giving conkers a run for their money as most awesome Autumn activity, is this lovely set of tips for building a woodland den. It's aimed directly at the kids so it's all in really simple language with loads of great ideas plus helpful safety advice.

Tree faces

Image: naturedetectives.org.uk

A brilliant resource for art lessons this, students find and draw a picture/photograph a 'face' on a tree. It's a great way to develop imagination and also empathy, as the kids are encouraged to think about how the tree is feeling based on the face it's pulling. Could you take it one step further and have them come up with reasons why the tree is feeling that way? What happened in the woodlands that day? The children could write up their stories as a follow up activity or even look at existing stories about tree people, such as the green man or dryads from Greek mythology. Don't miss the tree face 'hall of fame' on the page linked above - your students could even send in their own 'tree face' photos like the one to the right.

Cross curricular indoor activities and online games
You don't even need to go outside to enjoy all Autumn has to offer in every subject across the curriculum! 

Science
Develop a range of scientific skills with this DIY fungus experiment in which kids control variables like temperature, moisture and light to work out what fungi need to grow best. Another science activity is the food chains game, a board game which teaches children the connections between woodland wildlife in a fun, imaginative way. 

Literacy
If you'd prefer to develop your class' literacy skills, why not try the concrete poetry online flash game. Kids choose a woodland shape (or draw their own) and fill it with words (either from pre-prepared word banks or their own imaginations) to make a poem. The completed poems can be printed out. 

Another literacy game on the Nature Detectives site is called Save our wood. This presents players with plans to build a road through beautiful Badger Wood. The player navigates the woodland, looking for woodland residents. They interview each creature, collecting information before designing and writing an article to defend the wood from development. There's also a list of supporting resources including a sheet to help them develop a balanced debate (with arguments both for and against), plus a template to help them format an offline newspaper piece too. 

History
Another fab online game worth mentioning, this one based around developing historical knowledge, is A tree's memory. In this game, kids meet three trees - the ancient tree, the city tree and the country tree. They pick a tree and fill in its life story from a choice of images. For example, the city tree is only 50 years old, but in 1969, it witnessed something that was 'out of this world'! After selecting the correct image, the player gets a bit more information on the event, plus the tree's opinion!

Image: Rake School, West Sussex

Are you thinking of taking your class outside? Fancy a bit more inspiration or some advice on assessing the risks? This article by The Woodland Trust's Amy Williams is packed full of safety advice and inventive ways to engage students with the natural world.

Alterntatively, if you'd prefer to read about other schools who've taken the plunge and rented a piece of woodland to care for and use with their students (and that's not as outrageous an idea as you might think), take a look at this article by Patricia Ockenden of woodlands.co.uk. In it, she describes the amazing curricular opportunities taking the classroom to the woods offers.

Less is more? Teaching students to summarise

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Summarising a piece of text is a skill that students will need time and time again throughout their school life and beyond. Help them develop this skill with these two simple activities to teach summarising skills to pupils of any age group.

Activity 1. 'In a nutshell...'

'In a nutshell...' requires students to read a story or piece of text of your choice and then retell it in 25 words. Once students have reduced the text to 25 words, they then reduce the summary to a three word headline.

The activity provides an opportunity for students to concentrate on the main ideas of a text. It demonstrates to pupils that recording small details can prompt them to remember a good deal of information. Pupils will also see the need to ignore unimportant information, and evaluate whether they have captured the gist of the text.

You can download this task's worksheet for free here.

Activity 2. Word Splash!

This activity requires you to select ten key words from the text you'd like your students to summarise. Give students a copy of the text, write the ten words up on the board and tell the pupils they are going to write a paragraph summarising the story. They must use all the words on the board.

A limit of words can be given, a paragraph of no more than 50 words to summarise the text, for example.

The Wordsplash activity is a great way to differentiate for students who might struggle with 'In a nutshell...'. It's not as challenging, as students have more words to summarise the story with and the support of the key words on the board, but it still helps focus students on capturing the main ideas of the text.

If you are a subscriber to our magazine, you'll recognise these activities from one of our recent project plans. They were created by the fabulous Jane Jones, who designs all of our spectacular cross curricular projects. Don't miss out - subscribe to Creative Teaching and Learning today!

Can you picture the music?

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Philip Davis uses images and sound to make sure the students he works with can never say they haven't got any ideas. 

Here, he recounts some of the exciting projects he's undertaken with schools in the last couple of years, and shares a practical activity for you to try with your own students!

The ‘Whole New World’ project in Netherfield school, Nottingham, aimed to raise achievement and motivation in communication and literacy skills across the school. 

Every class, from Reception to Year Six, formed part of an imaginary land – oceans, caves, grassland, forests, rivers, lakes and mountains. I used sounds and images to immerse the pupils into their worlds – for example, a bubble machine and the sounds of waves and water were used with Reception.

Once the pupils had decided what their part of the land was like, they all developed a character. Their characters then became part of stories, and the students used their own images and others with sounds on the map templates. 

A Sherwood oak sculpture at
Netherfield School

As well as developing stories, we made books and models of the characters – Year Six even gave them Latin names. Each year group voted one character to represent their part of the land. These were then made into amazing sculptures using Sherwood oak. They are now in the playground as inspiration for more storytelling and poetry. Structures representing the areas of the land were also built around the playground and the pupils took an active role in doing this. 

Another interesting project I have undertaken with many schools is called ‘Element’, a week-long project based on the four elements – fire, water, earth and air.

The starting point of the whole week is poetry. I put together a collection of images and sounds to inspire ideas. Each pupil writes a poem based on what they experience from those images and sounds. I then collect all the poems and combine individual lines to create four songs – one for each element. Each class learns their song and the enthusiasm shown is wonderful when they realise it is their words being used with the music.

As part of the ongoing development of the methodology used in the Elements project, I have also designed sounds to inspire characters that represent the elements. I do this through something I call 'Sonic Moulding' – creating a three-dimensional model from sound. The diversity and imagination shown in this activity is stunning. Last year, I ran the project in four schools and not one model has been the same. It is an activity that both adults and children love.

The product of 'Sonic Moulding'

These models are then used as the basis for character descriptions. The engagement of the pupils is fantastic – they just love talking about their models, even giving them voices. Some pupils have even gone on to make short, stop-frame animation films with their models. There are so many possibilities.

The Elements project continues with sonic painting, drawing from sounds, poetry performance, expressive dance, song and sound design. Everything is put together for a special performance for parents and other invited guests. The pupils are encouraged to take an active role in all the preparations of this show. 

One parent said to me about his son in Year 4: ‘He usually doesn’t talk about school but this week he hasn’t stopped. He’s loved every minute.’

Try something like this yourself!

You will need:

• An image of a door (either on screen, or printed - make sure if you print it to have enough to distribute among the pupils)
• Two sounds of your choice
• Paper/pens

Put the image of the door on the screen.

Tell the pupils that the first sound they will hear represents a setting behind the door. Ask the pupils (you can do this with any age – even adults love it!) to write down or draw what settings they ‘see’ behind the door. As sound affects us all differently, it is very possible that each individual will have many, unconnected ideas – this is fine and should be encouraged. 

One Year 1 class  used the sounds
to imagine a scary, cold cave

After the sound has been played, give the pupils a few minutes to gather their thoughts and then share the ideas. Get them to write down everything that comes into their heads and encourage as much detail as possible. Rather than saying ‘there is a forest behind the door’, ensure that the atmosphere, colours and all the small details are described. 

Students can jot down their ideas on mindmaps like the one to the right or post-it notes.

The second sound represents a character. It is important to mention here that you do not want your students to come up with a character from fiction, but an idea of their own. Students can base them on characters they know from fiction, but do encourage them to be original. It works.

Now your students have both a setting and a character - let the creative works commence!

This blog post has been adapted from the article Philip wrote for Creative Teaching and Learning magazine. You can purchase the fab full article here.

Find out more information about Philip and his work here.

Watch the video below to see some of the amazing creative responses generated during the Elements project.