Trends Come And Go, But Social Media Keeps Going

Source: 2Factory

We thought this past year went fast, with all of the new tech tools out there for us to try. Well, get ready for 2014. It seems we just get settled in when new applications come along to add to our growing list of "need to know this," and we're not talking about Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

If the motion graphic Social Media Trends 2014 from 2Factory is any indication of what's ahead, we have our work cut out for us as teachers and parents in trying to keep up with our tech savvy students. To be sure, they may use technology's newest applications, but if your students are like ours, they need constant reminders about protecting their privacy. Even if we don't use these tools ourselves, we need to know about them to help navigate kids to use them responsibly.


SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2014 from 2 FACTORY on Vimeo.

Source: Comfortably 2.0

Formal professional development cannot possibly keep up with the hottest new technology trends among students. It's another reason why teachers should participate in some form of social media or follow education blogs to stay aware and be current.

The recent post called Education Is the Best Medicine from Comfortably 2.0 lists a host of apps with descriptions for parents and teachers alike on what teens are using. We stumbled across a few applications that we did not know ourselves, such as Voxer, Wanelo, and Whisper.

Source: Comfortably 2.0

Other social media applications to add to the list are Pheed and Line. According to Forbes, teens drove Pheed into the number one social media app spot last year, and we still have many teachers not even using Twitter.

Line is a mobile app with over 200 million users who can create messages using an array of stickers. It's huge in Asia and making its way east fast.

These apps are all free. This allows kids to easily download them onto their devices, and it is all the more reason why teachers have to be aware of what's out there. We may not use each application, but knowing them will help us educate our students to use technology as good digital citizens.

Source: Line

For other posts on social media, please see:

• Engaging Tools To Teach Social Media
• Teaching The Super Bowl: Social Media Literacy