Instagram Template with Google Slides

*Update - See the new updated Instagram Template here.

For better or for worse, students are all over Social Media - so why not give them a little of what they love mixed in with the learning?  My friend Ryan O'Donnell, (@creativeedtech), is quite talented with creating templates and he made an Instagram post template in Google Slides that caught my eye and sparked my imagination.  There are so many fun ways to use this in the classroom!  You can get a copy of his template by clicking the link I provide at the end of this post.  You can also find my updated templates for 2019 and 2022. Here is a glance at what he created:

How could you use this in the classroom, you ask?  Here are a few examples:

Summarizing chapters or sections of a book:
It takes quite a bit of skill to boil a summary down to a few sentences that truly capture the main ideas of a chapter.  Students can create a Slides file from the template where each slide becomes the summary for each section of text you assign.  They will need to choose a screen handle and profile picture that are appropriate for the character they are impersonating.  They will also choose a picture and some text for their "post".  This is an example for Chapter 1 of Charlotte's Web.

Baby pig photo from Michael Kappel

Responding to a historical event:

Students will need to choose a screen handle and picture appropriate for the historical person they are impersonating.  They will find a profile picture and "post" some text. This can be used to summarize an event or show their understanding of an event and/or its importance. 

Animal Study:

Students will take on the perspective of the animal and make posts to show their knowledge of that animal's life, habits, habitat, and diet, etc.  Think of something like "If an iguana had Instagram".  I'll tell you what, I learned quite a bit about Iguanas while creating these "posts" for this example!

Wild Plum photo from Forest and Kim Starr

Some other ideas are:

• Highlight a scientific discovery or invention
• Make a post that a book character would make about a certain event from the story if they had an Instagram account and lived in our day and age
• Make a post to show their knowledge of why a noteworthy person is well known
• Assume the role of Social Media manager for a specific state and make multiple posts showing the important things about your state, including all the things you might include in a state report

There are so many ways to utilize this type of template.  I'd love to hear how you decide to use it, and so would Ryan!  Feel free to tweet it out and tag us both (@TeachingTechNix and @creativeedtech).

You can get a copy of Ryan's original Instagram template by clicking here and view my 2019 template here.  I've recently updated the template with a new 2022 version, which you can view here. On the page that opens up, click the blue "Use Template" button in the upper right corner.

Check out Ryan's website for more amazing templates for all sorts of fun things.

*If you liked this Instagram template, you might also like my Fake Tweet Template.