According to the Wichita Falls Times Record News, Kyle Apperson, a history teacher at Rider High School in Wichita Falls, Texas, has had enormous success implementing online social media into his lesson plans.
All teachers in the Wichita Falls school system have access to unique webpages hosted on the school district's server, but many underutilize the sites' communicative capabilities, according to the source.
Maintaining some form of contact with students through a website can improve engagement in lessons much in the way that access to a tablet computer, document camera or HDMI projector can connect with students by integrating multimedia capabilities into traditional lesson plans.
Apperson's personal class website and Facebook page encourage students to ask questions and provide children supplemental information that makes lessons more comprehensive. Some elementary-level teachers provide links to educational games on their class websites along with comprehensive lists of in class material and homework to keep students and parents up to date.
Ashley Thomas, the school district's webmaster, encourages those teachers who are late to update their webpages to embrace the technology, which has recently been streamlined to make use easier.
"I tell them a lot of parents - that's where they go, to the internet to get their information," Thomas told the source. "It's important that teachers have information on their page and that it's updated. It can be a valuable and useful tool."
