Testing out Twitter?
Comments(1) At last week’s tech training, we mostly talked about Twitter (thanks to Alan’s keynote for inspiring the discussion). Thought I would share a few tips and tricks here:
One of my favorite resources for understanding new tech tools (and just about anything really) is Common Craft (their story is pretty interesting too). This is their Twitter video:
And just in case you were wondering how it can be useful for educational purposes (thanks Frank!):
And here are a few articles about how to use Twitter as PD or in the classroom:
- If you were on Twitter by Scott McLeod
- Dear Teacher who wasn’t on Twitter by Edna Sackson
- How Twitter can help teachers connect with students — and each other
- The 9 Step Plan to Combating illTWITTERacy by Lisa Nielsen
- Twitter Captures Students Thoughts and Ideas by Lisa Nielsen
- Keep the Education Conversation Going on Twitter with #EdChat by Lisa Nielsen
- How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN By Betty Ray
- 200 Articles on using Twitter for Social Learning
Once you create your account, you will probably want to find other like-minded educators. Here are a few places to start:
- The 2010 Edublog Awards – tons of great Twitter usernames, hashtags along with great teacher, student and classroom blogs, conferences and educational networks.
- Twitter4Teachers
- We Follow (search for a keyword at the top to help categorize your results – you might like “internationalschools”)
- Twitter for Educators
If you want to follow conversations around a specific topic, you might find these lists of great educational Twitter hashtags useful:
- Twitter Hashtags for Educators by Bill Ferriter, The Tempered Radical
- Twitter Hashtags for #Teachers on The Mobile Learning Blog
- Your Favorite Twitter Hashtags by Miguel Guhlin, Around the Corner
- Great List of Hashtags for Educators on SuperCoolSchool
- Twitter for Singletons by Bill Ferriter, The Tempered Radical (specifically for single-subject teachers)
And once you’re following a few people, you might want to view your Twitter feed in a format more like a magazine (which automatically highlights the stories that the people you follow are talking about the most):
- Twitter Times (you can see what mine looks like)
- Paper.li (you can see mine here)
If you have more useful resources, please share!
category: Professional Development tags: twitter
Thanks for putting together these lists of sources for learning more about Twitter, Kim! I’m delivering a session of my own in the near future and am planning on linking to this entry. It’s spot on.
BTW: I’ve been maintaining a list of Twitter hashtags that are specific to the singletons—art teachers, band directors, media specialists etc— in our schools, too. Here it is:
http://bit.ly/singletons
Hope it helps somehow.
Rock on,
Bill