As educators mark the beginning of another school year, Education Week marks the beginning of our venture into TikTok.
Today, EdWeek’s social team posted its debut video on the social media platform asking teachers to show how they’re setting up their classrooms for the 2023-24 school year. We want to use TikTok to highlight educators’ voices in a dynamic way.
Why TikTok?
It’s no secret that the video-sharing platform is many teachers’ best friend.
Education Week staff writer Elizabeth Heubeck wrote about a recent study that found that teaching is the second most popular profession on TikTok, according to the number of views associated with the profession’s hashtag. Videos “linked to the hashtag #teacher garnered 61.3 billion views—second only to those labeled with #doctor, which edged out those from educators with 61.5 billion views,” Heubeck reported.
We’ve written about the creative ways that teachers use TikTok, from connecting with other educators to sharing lesson ideas to documenting their OOTDs (“outfit of the day”). And it’s not just experienced educators who have flocked to the platform: Many preservice teachers also use TikTok as a professional development tool, which offers them an extensive video repository packed with ideas and approaches that are specific to the subject and grade they teach.
We also know there are big security and privacy concerns about TikTok, especially for younger users, an issue we’ve also reported on in recent months.
We’re eager to tap into conversations and trends within TikTok’s vast community of educators, as well as to share our journalism with our educator audience in a new way—one that will continue to inspire and empower them to build a stronger tomorrow for all students.
We hope you will join us on the platform! Click here to follow our account, and let us know how you think we can best contribute to the TikTok conversation by emailing us at community@educationweek.org.
