Instagram for global perspective

What's the next new social media phenomenon we're going to have to quickly learn how to integrate into our lessons, am I right? It's hard to keep up! I've been looking for a way to integrate Instagram meaningfully, and I'm happy to share this lesson with you. With novice students learning to use the present progressive to express what is happening, we investigated the world in pictures, made predictions about cultural perspectives and products, and threw out our questions on Twitter with a #(country name) so that target language speakers with knowledge would respond and provide us with answers to our predictions! It was so much fun to check Twitter every day and find out if any of our cultural wonderings were correct, and more importantly, to use language with such authenticity. How is this lesson building global competency?  Global citizens are curious about the world and they investigate it. They begin to develop an understanding of different cultural practices and perspectives and communicate with empathy and care when engaging in conversations with not only each other but with those people outside of their own practices, products, and perspectives. To develop global competency in this lesson, one needs to intentionally have these conversations as the lesson develops from the investigation (Instagram) to the exploration of ideas (making cultural predictions), to communication with others. It makes for so many teachable moments, and those are just THE BEST!