A short presentation created in order to bring some of my new colleagues into the Twitterers.

1. How To Use Twitter
(AND WHY YOU SHOULD)
Image Credit: www.jasonjordan.com.au

2. WHY TWITTER?
 “Making professional connections via
social networking … result(s) in a lot of
great sharing of ideas and resources …
It’s like having a professional
development seminar at your fingertips
24/7 …”
(from “Using Twitter for Professional Development” by
Sarah W. Caron, 2011)
THE place to find and share resources, ask questions, learn about
innovations and even find a job.

3. LET’S “WATCH” TWITTER
If the link is inactive: go to
www.tweetping.net
Image Credit: www.mashable.com

4. Starting Out
 You will gain more followers and engage in more
interaction if ... You use your own name and include a
photo as your avatar. People want to know who they
are speaking with. You might be told to “hatch your
egg!” Ensure that you remain
active; send tweets
everyday. Even if it’s only
a handful.
Let me know if
you would like a
“shout out” i.e. if
you want me to
introduce you to
my followers.

5. The Twitter Home Page

6. Some Definitions
 @ All users of Twitter have a
“handle” or user name. It can
be your actual name or an
“alias.” e.g. mine is
@connectedtchr
 # A hashtag is used mainly
for group chats. E.g. I am part
of a group chat each
Wednesday night with fellow
History teachers. We use the
hashtag #histedchat to tag
our contributions.
 DM is for “direct message”
when you send a private
message to the recipient’s
chosen email address.
 Some other terms …
 RT this stands for retweet,
when you decide to send a
particularly relevant tweet to
your own followers
 MT this stands for modified
tweet … where you have
altered or added to a (re)tweet
 #FF “Follow Friday” is used
(only on Friday) when you
suggest people to follow
 Tweeps are your followers,
your “Twitter Peeps”

7. Composing a Tweet
 Technically you have only 140
characters … but you are allowed
extra for the recipient’s name and
there are several ways to shorten
any link you insert. If you keep to
120 characters you’re leaving space
for MTs and RTs
 You can insert photos, web links,
videos and since Twitter acquired
Vine, 6 second video tweets.
“Periscope” will allow a “Twitter live
feed”
 Many people, myself included, use a
third party Twitter management app
which can make some of these
actions easier. The most popular are
Hoot Suite, Tweet Deck and
Tweetbot.
Type in the available space
and the counter will count
down showing the characters
remaining. Edit if necessary
and then just hit the Tweet
button.

8. Reading and Responding
To “respond” you begin by clicking on the “Expand” option. A window like this
will open up and you then have a range of alternatives. “Reply” and “Retweet”
should be fairly obvious. If you “Favorite” a tweet, you can come back to it at
a later stage e.g. to click on the link and read the attached file.

9. Who Do I Follow?
 Most people start with a
celebrity like Stephen Fry but
I’ve long since deleted him.
You can have more than one
Twitter account so
@connectedtchr is just for my
education PLN.
 You can look out for #FF
suggestions but you will find
that your PLN will grow like all
networks. Those who make
the best use of Twitter go by
the maxim “It’s not the number
of your followers but rather the
quality.”
 You don’t have to follow others
but can, for a time, simply be a
“lurker” until you want to join
in.
 The following are some of the
better education hash tags …
 #edchat
 #edtech
 #elearning
 #stem

10. The Twitterati of Education
 George Couros @gcouros (74000 + followers)
 Angela Maiers @AngelaMaiers (125000 +)
 Steven Anderson @web20classroom (114000 +)
 Tom Whitby @tomwhitby (59000 +)
 Richard Byrne @rmbyrne (78000 +)
And be sure to also follow:
@AusLessons @LarryFerlazzo @courosa
And, of course, @connectedtchr

11. HASHTAGS and TWITTER
ABBREVIATIONS
 A hashtag is a way to identify
a tweet on a specific topic e.g.
#edtech #histedchat #STEAM
#makered
 If you use a 3rd party app such
as TweetDeck, you can use
the hashtag (as a “filter”) to
follow just that conversation in
a single stream
 You don’t have to be restricted
to the established hashtags …
just make your own e.g.
#confused
 A few common abbreviations
to employ
 AFAIK (As far as I know)
 HT (Hat tip/heard through)
 ICYMI (In case you missed it)
 IMHO (In my humble opinion)
 SMH (Shaking my head)
 TFTF (Thanks for the follow)

12. TIME TO TWEET
Image Credit: http://blogs.knoxnews.com