Educator's Guide To Periscope & Meerkat

Facebook. Vine. Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat.

The list above contains all social media tools that our students use and that school employees know about.  It is the job of parents and educators to educate our students as to the positives and negatives.

Enter Periscope & Meerkat

These social media apps were introduced to the masses as early as last Thursday.  While Periscope and Meerkat aim to have people stream live video of breaking news, as with any social media app, negative uses may occur. Knowing the features of the tools can better help parents, staff, and students be know what the apps can do.

Periscope and Meerkat are essentially the same tech tool.  Via an iPhone or iPad (currently not available for Android), "broadcasters" can live stream anything they want.  This can be done publicly or privately based on settings. With Periscope, hearts (likes) and viewer questions and comments can be displayed as the live stream is occurring.  Each video can be archived for viewing later complete with hearts and comments.

Since Periscope's release, Meerkat is already fading even after $14 million in funding on the App Store "top downloads" list.  Periscope was purchased by Twitter for somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 -$100 million even before its release.

Because of this, Periscope will be the further focus of this blog post.


Some "need to know" features of Periscope.

• Replay - When the broadcast is over, viewers can watch it later. Currently replays only last 24 hours.  The replay can be deleted by the broadcaster at any time.
• Private - Pressing the lock icon allows for the broadcaster to choose the audience
• Twitter - By tapping the bird icon, a live link will be shared on Twitter
• Manage Notifications - Turning on will give provide a notification that people that a user is following has started a broadcast
• Hearts - Giving hearts to a broadcast or receiving hearts determines the "likes" of a stream

Watch How To Use Both

Educator Use:

• Broadcast live a field trip
• Broadcast live a lesson
• Broadcast live a school event, for example: academic event, sporting event
• Broadcast live graduation
• Broadcast live events (Goody Triathlon)
• Broadcast unique lessons
• Broadcast how to lessons such as foods, woods, metals, or autos 

Please also be aware of copyright and live streaming.
Appropriate for education

Periscope and Meerkat can be used in a positive way for many reasons.  Knowing the features and purposes of these apps, may help teach students the proper use of these new, technology tools.

*Not sure this will catch on? Riff was just released that allows same video creation features, but with a collaboration feature. (Multiple people making videos at the same time)

Business Use of Periscope
***Katch and Keep all your Periscope broadcasts!

Personal TV Through Apps

I teach a Wall Street class that allows students to invest $100,000 over 12 weeks.  Personal business TV apps such as CNBC RT and  Bloomber TV provide real time and archived video segments for learning about the day's business news.

Students Create New Game - PBL Introduction

This was a great idea.  We have an "afternoon block' of one hour and twenty minutes to complete social studies and communication arts.  47 students learning at one time.  Our first attempt at the problem based learning aspect was to demonstrate a game that has never been created.  Since placing 47 students in one room would be challenging we created a Ustream Channel and broadcast the instruction to two different rooms.  It was quite successful.  In the future, we want to incorporate Google Chat so that students from the other room can communicate with the students that are being presented.




Students watching in another classroom.



We have 12 different learning areas in our two classrooms.  Students have access to a large whiteboard learning area.  This was fantastic for students to draw, write, and create their game.  The best aspect of the whiteboard area is that it does NOT need to be erased.  Students will return on Tuesday and their ideas will still be present.  AWESOME!