Use Memes, Fakebook and Emoji in Class

It doesn't matter the content, sometimes a good hook is all you need to motivate students to learn. 
Mr. Egnot recently asked his students to make Fakebook pages for historical figures; Mr. Kollar Instagrams math problems to his student followers from his living room and the grocery store;  Ms. Lyttle has had students craft tweets about their reading. 

Using modern day interests of students is a good way to motivate students to work, but much more than that it is a great way to draw out critical thought. Students are forced to think in new ways about your subject when you ask them to juxtapose incongruous things, think humorously, or work in a non-academic medium.  

Moreover, this is a way to assess learning. Here are some tools to try:

Emoji

  Mrs. Erin Stevenson, East Providence High School social studies teacher uses emoji to both solidify and assess student understanding of the bill of rights.  

" With a partner, open notes (on one of your phones) 

• Using only Emojis, create a visual representation of Amendments 1-10
• When you’re done, screenshot the Note
• Post the picture under the Schoology Discussion “Amendments Emojis!” or email it to me!   "
• - Erin Stephenson's Emoji Bill of Rights Opener

Click the image to see more Bill of Rights emoji from Mrs. Stephenson's students.

Memes 

Sites like Quickmeme allow students to instantly make a meme about their lesson. You can have students make their own meme as an opener, a vocab or topic activity, an exit ticket, or even in place of an essay question on a test.  Memes can be posted to a Google Classroom disucssion, class Edmodo, wiki, webpage, or Google Doc so that all can share and comment, laugh and learn.


Now that we have Chromebooks, there are many meme-creating apps students can get from the chrome web store.   

Fakebook

Here is a short walk though of Fakebook, including Ms. Thornburg's Fakebook for Rasputin!

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Real Social Media

Follow Mr. Kollar's lead and teach students where they are. Ask them their favorite social media platforms, then create your own account and post educational instagram photos, vines etc. Students can learn while they play.

Related Posts:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/how-to-use-fakebook
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/gifted-and-ib-conference-notes includes some great social media and meme ideas from Angela and Brian Housand