As a collaborative social media management platform for schools, Class Intercom has seen first hand the impact educators are making through social media. As much of the world went virtual in the last year, we saw educators getting more creative than ever.
The Content Generation award was created to recognize outstanding educators across the country making a difference with their students and communities using social media. Class Intercom would like to congratulate English teacher Ryan Price from Vacaville, CA in being the first annual Content Generation award recipient. Here is how Price is making a difference.
Price is a high school English teacher at Buckingham Charter Magnet High School. His involvement in social media began with a desire to help his students learn vocabulary.
“A few years ago, my AP Lit students took a practice AP Exam and did quite poorly on it,” Price said. “After discussing it with them, I came to the conclusion that vocabulary was the main barrier holding them back.”
This realization led him to pursue the resources on vocabulary.com, including the Vocab Bowl. The Vocab bowl is a national competition among thousands of high schools where schools compete throughout the year for “word domination.” Price made it a class goal to win the National Championship.
“I decided to create a fictional character that would do goofy interviews with students about vocabulary and post them to Instagram,” Price said. “My thought was that the kids on campus would get a kick out of seeing each other on social media and, as a result, be inspired to participate.”
This is when Price assumed the role of “Larry Lexicon”. “Larry” is taken from the ending of the word “vocabulary” and the word “Lexicon” was added by his students.
From there, Price started a YouTube channel featuring this new character. Price created episodes with Larry in situations against competing schools. The episodes were such a hit, that he even set vocabulary goals for his students that they would need to hit in order to unlock the next episodes.
“The end result? Success! We won the National Championship in the Vocab Bowl,” Price proudly stated
When the COVID-19 global pandemic hit, Price knew he would have to get creative. A student recommended that he get a TikTok account. He decided to give it a try.
This is when “Larry Lexicon” took off. Price was able to reach a larger audience with his content. At the time this post was written, he had 805,900 followers.
@larrylexiconMeet Buck! #larrylexicon #vocabbowl #buckthemascot #teacherlife #teachersoftiktok #foryoupage #foryou #highschool #puppy♬ original sound – Larry Lexicon
“Not only was I able to motivate my own students to take their vocab acquisition seriously, but now I was able to motivate other schools and students from all over the country to participate, too.”
TikTok brought out a new side to Larry Lexicon. Price’s students encouraged him to take a more angry approach with the character. This led to funny scenes of Larry motivating his students with ridiculous threats. “From that point on, Larry Lexicon became this character that is obsessed with winning the Vocab Bowl and will stop at nothing to keep from winning.”
Price stressed how fruitful the whole experience has been. Not only has it motivated his students to study vocabulary, but it has brought them closer together.
“We create the skits together and, more importantly, it has allowed me to give some students a platform to show off some of their own talents.”
One student helps with the video editing while another helps create the graphics that are used.
Social media had a massive impact on Price’s class. Price effectively used it to teach, engage, and increase collaboration. They are now back-to-back-to-back Vocab Bowl National Champions.
You can find Price on TikTok: @larrylexicon. You can also find his YouTube channel here.
