Social Media & Digital Tools Lesson

Prepared by: Jami Williams, Mexico High School, Mexico, Missouri

TARGET
Students will establish social media accounts that will serve as their journalistic media assets.

EDUCATION METHODS

  1. PowerPoint presentation
  2. Independent Work

OBJECTIVES

  1. Level 1 (Basic) understanding of the role that social media plays in journalism
  2. Level 2 (Proficient) understanding of creating and using a social media account as a media asset.

MATERIALS NEEDED

  1. Social Media PowerPoint Day 1
  2. Social Media Organizer

VERIFICATION

Steps to check for student understanding

  1. Teacher will do frequent comprehension checks in the form of Classroom Assessment Techniques (thumbs up, thumbs down; exit slip in the form of post-it note summary).
  2. This module will include a heavy amount of independent work and research. The teacher will act as a facilitator but will also benefit from research and contribution to the assets list that will be created throughout this unit for future use.

FLOW OF LESSON

  1. Suggested bell ringer: What is your favorite social media outlet and why?
  2. Teacher will present the PowerPoint.
  3. Teacher will explain that the class will be developing their social media accounts for each of the publications or newscasts and along with those accounts each student will create a personal journalistic account that will evolve into an offshoot of their assigned beats and stories as the year progresses.
  4. Teacher will distribute the Social Media Organizer and explain that along with developing their own personal media accounts, they will be responsible for following and subscribing to each other, making posters that promote the journalistic products that the class will be managing in order to get followers and beginning to utilize their journalist social media apps for good!
  5. Teacher will also explain that students are to research and attempt to use both TweetDeck and HootSuite and offer their recommendations on which platform works best for the class as a whole.
  6. IF THERE IS TIME – have the students explore Storify.
  7. FOR THE NEXT DAY – students need to have their social media organizers done so that they can share their information. Each student in the class should be subscribing and following each other. Also, it might be helpful to set a goal for followers in order to promote the media you are going to be publishing. Daily Tweet and post goals should be set, as should parameters for using social media as a journalist because it will reflect on the whole department not just that one person.

WRAPPING IT UP

  1. Exit slip: If you could create an app that did one thing, what would that app do and what would you call it?