Twitter in Education

Twitter in Education How & Why www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

What is Twitter?
… is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers.
… is ‘digital communication’.
… is network formed around a shared interest.
www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

How Can I Use Twitter
You have 140 characters (including spaces) to say what you have to say.
You can ‘follow’ people and what they say, they can follow you and what you say.
You can connect with anyone, for any reason, at any time.

Terminology
Tweet : an individual post.
RT (Retweet) : re-telling someone else’s tweet.
@username : open message to specific person.
Message : Direct message a follower (private)
#Hashtag : Use Hashtag to group & track discussions (conference, seminar, classroom activity, etc)

Video: Twitter in Plain English www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Important!!
To fully appreciate Twitter, you should have a reason to use it before you start.
What is your reason?

Reasons to use Twitter
Professional : Networking, Research, Teaching, Learning, Collaboration, News, Information, Sharing, Updates, etc.
Personal : Hobby, Charity, Family, Friends, Travel, etc.

Twitter in Education
Teaching :
Classroom activity
Seminar discussion
Conference
Collaboration
Library
… as well as:
Information
Assignment deadlines
Room change
Reading list

“ What are you Doing?”
“ What are you doing?”
Inform followers of your current work, research, travel, interest, reading, website, browsing, cooking, etc.
Find other like-minded individuals from what they ‘tweet’ about.
Keep it short!

What do I say?
Make it relevant .
Make it count .
Ask questions ; you will get answers from your network.
Think about how your network might retweet; your network will grow as a result of a good tweet.
Provide value through your tweet.
Be yourself .

Example Tweet: @MarkRussell Reply to MarkRussell HashTags: #eLearning and #University Tweet content Number of characters remaining in current tweet (counts down from 140). www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Twitter in the classroom
Classes : open discussion in timetabled seminar / class, continue it outside.
Community : Create community-feel through linked tweets.
Instant feedback : approval/disapproval of recent discussions, issues, etc.
Public notepad : share inspiration, reading, thought, ideas, etc.
Technology : Laptops, Netbooks, iPhones / iTouch & other SmartPhones, any Internet-enabled device.
Messages : Use Twitter as a personal message board

The Networked Teacher Source: Alec Couros www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

It’s not about Celebrities, it’s about you! Stephen Fry 480,000 followers by May 2009. Barack Obama 1.5million followers by May 2009. www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Who do I follow?
Find one or two people who have similar interest to you (use Twitter Search) .
Follow them.
Look at who they follow.
Follow the ones who look interesting to you. By following people outside your ‘normal’ network, they might follow you back ... hey presto, a growing network!

Useful Resources TweetDeck www.tweetdeck.com Desktop application to run and manage followers, tweets, searches, favourites, etc. Bit.Ly www.bit.ly Shorten website links into only 19 characters; leaves you more characters for each tweet! Twitter Search search.twitter.com Search Twitter for names, phrases, people, trends, news, etc. www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Mobile Devices TwitterFon www.twitterfon.net TwitterFon is a simple, clean, easy to use, and super fast Twitter client for your iPhone and iPod Touch . TinyTwitter www.tinytwitter.com Will work on all BlackBerry phones and any Java enabled mobile device. Twibble Mobile m.twibble.de Twitter application for Nokia Smartphones. www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Thank you, ‘tweet’ you later!
David Hopkins
twitter.com/hopkinsdavid

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Twitter in Education

by David Hopkins on May 12, 2009

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Twitter in Education — Presentation Transcript