InstaClone – A Lifelike Social Media Educational Tool

Short description: 

InstaClone is a lifelike social media educational tool designed to promote data and algorithmic literacy in secondary schools. It allows students to "look behind the curtain" and gain a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of social media.

Keywords: social media education, data literacy, educational tool, algorithmic literacy 

Target group: secondary students 14 years and older and their teachers

Vision: 

InstaClone aims to empower young people to be a positive force for a better and healthier online public discourse, transforming them from mere users of social media platforms to active shapers of the future.

Mission:

Our mission is to provide secondary schools with a comprehensive curriculum intervention tool, accompanied by K-12 classroom materials, that enhances social media education. We strive to foster students' data and algorithmic literacy through a deep understanding of black box algorithms and the possibility to analyze typically inaccessible data.

Project outline:

InstaClone is a web-based environment replicating the functionality and visual appearance of Instagram, offering full control for educational and scientific purposes. It aligns seamlessly with secondary school education and is designed based on a pedagogical research framework of learning and teaching. With its user-friendly interface, InstaClone is freely available to teachers and can be used by anyone without IT experience. Students can engage with the tool in a similar way to Instagram but also use built-in dashboards and analytics features to explore the dynamics of social media.

Funding: 

Funding: HfP Think Tank, Re-Boot Social Media Lab

Responsible PI: Doris Holzberger, Tilman Michaeli, Jürgen Pfeffer

Link:

For teachers who are interested in using the environment in their classroom, please inform yourself here.

Contact:

Contact: Tilman.michaeli@tum.de