Learning With, For, and About Your Community (Instagram Activity)

I recently started doing a weekend photo dump on Instagram to share with others learning from my week and as a way to actively reflect on the week that just passed.

Looking through my pictures from the week reminds me of things that went wrong, things that went right, and things I should be grateful for in my life. It is a pretty valuable exercise in putting together my thoughts and reflecting on the week that was and where I want to go moving forward.

 

Image result for self reflection quote

I appreciate trying new things like this and understanding it from a learner’s viewpoint. You can see the most recent version of this post here.

Why am I sharing this with you here today?

I would love to see a version of this in schools for the upcoming year and thought about how this could be used in a school community.

The format (take it and modify it as you wish) I use each week is that I share a quote at the top, a quick reflection, and three short takeaways from the week. I then end it off with an encouragement for others to share something back with me.

Here is the format in point form:

 


 

  1. Photo Dump of the Week 
  2. Opening quote
  3. Quick Reflection
  4. 3 Things I Learned This Week
  5. Encouragement for others to share their own reflections.

 


 

As I pondered this idea, here is a way to modify it.

 

1. Photo Dump of the Week (Instagram is limited to 10 photos in a post, but this is a beautiful way to highlight things in your school!)
2. Opening quote
3. Quick Reflection 

(An administrator or whoever is running the account could do this.)

 

3. 3 Things I Learned This Week

I would have three people from my community share one thing they learned from the week in 140 characters or less (Old Twitter style!). My initial thought would be a staff member, student, and community member. You could also have someone do all three each week.

 

4. Encouragement for others to share their own reflections.

This is a great way to get people to learn from others and build community.

 


 

What would be the benefits of this for a school community?

 

  1. It is a great model of social media use for students, staff, and the community at large. Are we using these spaces to share our learning and build community or tear one another down?
  2. As a learning community, this is a great way to model learning happens at all ages and in different roles in our schools.
  3. It encourages connection and participation that is authentic.
  4. This would encourage and model the practice of reflection and the necessity of looking back to move forward.

 

 


 

This could also be done at the classroom level, where a student or multiple students are featured each week in the reflections. 

As I was thinking about the possibility of doing something like this, it reminded me of the “3 Types of Learning” that we should focus on in communities that I shared in “Innovate Inside the Box“:

 

 

This would be a great practice to highlight the year in your school or classroom, and if you decide to do this or a version of it, please let me know in the comments or by emailing me directly.

(As shared earlier, here is the link to my post modeling this practice.)

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