This presentation shows teachers how to use Twitter as a valuable means of professional development. It covers sign-up, hashtags and nametags, as well as valuable people and tags to follow.
2. What is it?
• Twitter is a "micro-blogging" platform
• Real-time delivery of "Tweets"
• Communication is through 114400--cchhaarraacctteerr
"tweets"
3. Why Twitter?
• Twitter provides a ccoonnssttaanntt ssttrreeaamm of
information
• When used properly Twitter can provide
hundreds of uusseeffuull ttiippss aanndd lliinnkkss
• Allows quick ddiisssseemmiinnaattiioonn ooff iiddeeaass
• The Best Way to keep up with ccuurrrreenntt eevveennttss
• Most conferences use Twitter to keep the
interest of those who couldn’t attend
5. # (hash tag)
Shift+3
• Groups common tweets together
• Main mmeetthhoodd ooff sseeaarrcchh on Twitter
• No spaces allowed
• When used in a tweet it becomes a link to that group
of tweets
• CCoommmmuunniittyy ccrreeaatteedd
#edtech
(educational tech)
#edreform
(education reform)
#ifihadsuperpowers
(funny)
#ntchat
(new teacher)
#innochat
(innovation)
#edchat
(education chat)
Terms
7. Follow
Followers
• People who are following
you
• You have no control over
who can/cannot follow
you
• Followers will receive all
of your “tweets” in their
Twitter stream
Following
• People you follow
• The tweets of the people
you follow will show up in
your stream.
Terms
8.
9. Terms
@ (at)
Shift+2
• YYoouurr ""ttwwiitttteerr nnaammee""
• Creates link to specific profile
• Used to reference or reply a person
@jut754
Justin Hanger
@mcleod
Scott McLeod
@rmbyrne
Richard Byrne
@web20classroom
Steven W. Anderson
@theelsite
The E-Learning Site
@techcrunch
Tech Crunch
11. Terms
Retweet
RT
• Allows you to post someone else's tweet to your
followers
• The tweet is still linked to the original person’s account.
• Can start aann iiddeeaa tthhaatt sspprreeaaddss like wildfire.
13. Terms
URL Shortening
• Used to shorten URL's (web addresses) used
in a tweet
o 140-character limit means long addresses
must be shortened
• This: http://support.twitter.ccoomm//ggrroouuppss//3311--ttwwiitttteerr--
bbaassiiccss//ttooppiiccss//110044--wweellccoommee--ttoo--ttwwiitttteerr--
ssuuppppoorrtt//aarrttiicclleess//221155558855--ttwwiitttteerr--110011--hhooww--sshhoouulldd--ii--
ggeett--ssttaarrtteedd--uussiinngg--ttwwiitttteerr (150 Characters)
• Becomes: hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//cceeuuKKuuqq (20 characters)
o SSaammee lliinnkk bbuutt mmuucchh sshhoorrtteerr
16. http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/104-welcome-to-twitter-support/
http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/104-welcome-to-twitter-support/
articles/215585-twitter-101-how-should-i-get-started-using-twitter
articles/215585-twitter-101-how-should-i-get-started-using-twitter
•Official Twitter guide
•Official Twitter guide
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2011/06/09/simon.twitter.classroom.cnn
•Video highlighting a teacher who included Twitter in his classroom
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2011/06/09/simon.twitter.classroom.cnn
•Video highlighting a teacher who included Twitter in his classroom
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38698
•Scott McLeod lists 20 interesting things he found on Twitter in one day and why YOU
should be on Twitter
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38698
•Scott McLeod lists 20 interesting things he found on Twitter in one day and why YOU
should be on Twitter
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/education/13social.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
•A New York Times article discussing the pros and cons of Twitter in the classroom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/education/13social.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
•A New York Times article discussing the pros and cons of Twitter in the classroom.
http://wefollow.com/twitter/education
•List of inflectional educators on Twitter.
http://wefollow.com/twitter/education
•List of inflectional educators on Twitter.
Resources
17. Twitter for Teachers by Justin Hanger is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Editor's Notes
For this presentation I am going to show you how to use Twitter and why it is an important part of any educators PD toolbox
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, stressing short concise posts which convey a quick message. Links are shared in order to share longer ideas.
Tweets are delivered in near real-time which is why Twitter is known for quick-disseminating, rapidly spread news.
The most important aspect of Twitter is the 140-character limit. All tweets are strictly limited to 140 characters. Characters include spaces, punctuation, letters and numbers. This limit is important and is unavoidable. It keeps users short and succinct in their posts.
Twitter started as a way for people to quickly communicate information. Educators have adopted it as a way to share resources, links, articles, stories & lesson ideas. They also use it as a way to communicate.
Educators create hash tags (you will see those later) for educational conferences, allowing people in PA to virtually attend and receive updates on a conference happening in California.
We will utilize hash tags very soon.
I personally have used Twitter at conferences to meet-up with people I didn’t even know would be in attendance, and learn about conferences I would have not otherwise known existed.
To sign-up for Twitter simply go to Twitter.com and click sign-up. It is very easy and you will be up and running in minutes.
Twitter comes with it’s own terminology, and if you want to use it effectively you need to learn and understand these terms.
Hash tags are what makes Twitter so powerful. Without hash tags you would only get updates from people you directly follow. You can think of hash tags like a public folder. Anybody can put a hash tag in their tweet. This will link their tweet to others who post the same tag and allow people with similar ideas to find one another.
Another interesting thing about hash tags is that they are completely 100% community created. You could log onto Twitter right now, create a hash tag and that’s it. Others can now use that tag and create a topic. If enough users tweet that hash tag it will become a “trending topic” meaning that it is hot news right at that moment. Go on Twitter during any big news event (most recently the shootings in Norway) and you will most likely find a trending topic related to the story.
We are going to create our own hash tag #RCCSDchat.
When you search for a hash tag you will notice that each of the tweets found contain that hash tag, and that each tweet has information that is relevant to that tag.
Understanding what it means to follow someone is very important. You follow the people you want to read. You control who you follow, but ANYBODY can follow you.
Most people will judge your status on Twitter based on the amount of followers you have. It is good practice to follow those that follow you, however this is not mandatory.
If you wanted to tell your friends or colleagues to read your Twitter stream you would ask them to Follow You. You might have also seen the buttons around the web that say “Follow Me” or “Follow Us”. This is a link to their Twitter stream.
This is my stream, this is the heart of Twitter. The items on the left hand side are the tweets of people that I follow. In the top right panel are people I follow and people that are following me. Notice links are highlighted. These can be links to other websites or links to hash tags or profiles which we will talk about later. This is constantly updating with tweets as they are posted in real time.
The @ symbol is how people find one another on Twitter. If you list your Twitter username on a website or business card you would put @YourTwitterName. For example; my Twitter username is Jut754, therefore I would tell someone that they can follow me using @jut754.
The @ symbol is what tells people that this is a Twitter username quickly and easily.
Whenever someone types @ with your username Twitter counts it as a “mention”. This means that that persons Tweet is listed in your Twitter Feed and under your mention column to let you know that someone is tweeting about you.
This is also used to reply to a tweet from someone else. If you wanted to agree with someone's tweet you could tweet “@username I agree”.
Another way of showing someone you agree with their tweet is to retweet it. Retweeting is like sharing. If someone posts an interesting link, you could retweet to your followers.
This is one of the reasons that news spreads so fast on Twitter, one click of a button and news can spread to hundreds of thousands of people
This page shows tweets that have been retweeted. Notice the note under the tweet that shows others that it was retweeted. Because some followers might not be following these people, this helps them know that this tweet was retweeted by someone they follow, and that they might find the original poster worth following as well.
URL shortening was a revolution for Twitter. It allowed people to share links that previously were unshareable. Because Twitter is limited to 140 characters, some links are too long. URL shorteners will take the same link to around 20 characters, making it take less characters in a persons tweet.
Be careful of shortened links from people you don’t trust. Since the shortened link does not show exactly where the page goes, it could lead you to something other than what the person says it is.
I share links a lot. These posts have URLs that have been shortened in various ways. If you see a button on a blog or website that allows you to share on Twitter, generally that button will automatically shorten the link as well.
There are many choices for shortening URL’s. Bit.ly, Owy.ly and Goo.gl are the most popular, but you may find you like even more.
Twitter can be utilized by teachers both in and out of the classroom. It can be used to stir debate, encourage critical thinking, answer difficult questions and even help students find their voice. Twitter started as a place for people to post about the boring mundane details of their life (and that still happens) but the Twitter community has adapted this tool to fit their own needs. Twitter is a community of people that share, discuss, fight and fix. And all of it happens in 140-characters or less.
Twitter for Teachers by Justin Hanger is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.