Front Row Education, Inc. recently asked 1,000 K-8 teachers how they are using social media personally, professionally and as a communication tool with parents and students. Here are some of their key findings:
Social media is not widely used to communicate with students or parents
- One in five teachers use social media on a monthly or more frequent basis to communicate with students or parents, with Google + the most widely used platform.
For personal use, Facebook is the clear winner.
- Seventy-one percent of teachers use Facebook daily for personal use, followed by Google + (33%), Pinterest (32%), Instagram (27%) and Twitter (18%).
Pinterest has the largest correlation between professional and personal use; Facebook the smallest
- While 69% of teachers use Pinterest weekly for personal use, 67% use weekly for professional purposes.
- Facebook is used for professional purposes by just 44% of teachers weekly vs. 82% for personal use.
Where you teach reflects your social media habits both personally and professionally
- Teachers in the West are least likely to use Google + daily for professional use (17%) compared to other regions, where on average 28% of teachers do so.
- Daily Pinterest use for professional purposes is highest in the South (34%), and lowest in the Northeast (20%)
