"Instagram" Classroom

The power of social media and Instagram has changed the way our students see the world. Social Media sites like Instagram allow people to connect with other people from all over the world. These connections are shared through images and comments. My "Instagram" classroom project idea came from when I posted a picture of nature on my Instagram account. Most of my pictures were usually images of Century Link field, sporting events, friends, or food. The picture I posted though was of a tree that I hugged in the woods. This picture reached out to other nature enthusiasts that liked my photograph and wrote comments to me, people I have never met before.

This reaction reminded me of the phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words." As I browsed the popular page on Instagram, I saw an endless amount of selfies, food photos, and pictures of celebrities with thousands of likes. These images are reaching out to millions of people, and the ones that are the most popular are of people that are already famous? It made me think about how a picture can reach out to so many people and how it can mean so much more with a good comment or story.

I challenged the students in middle school to think of a photograph that had meaning to them, we then used the app "SnapSeed" to edit and filter the photograph, similar to Instagram's filters. Once the photograph was ready, the students were to write a story about the photograph and how it was important to them and I asked them a question, "if you posted this photograph in social media, how would you try to explain it to connect to other people?"

The following week, students partnered up and I provided a worksheet. The classroom setup was designed to have students quietly look at each others photograph and have a quiet "reaction" time, where they would write down feelings, thoughts, and ideas about the photo. Then they would hear the story behind the photograph and then react to the story with any connections or write why they didn't share a connection.