Anatomy of A Tweet- Must See Guide for Teachers. Using Twitter for educational purposes starts with understanding how this social networking and microblogging platform works. This is best done via going through the tutorials found in its FAQ page or through videos other volunteers created and posted in YouTube or Vimeo. Now that your students have understood how to create their profile on Twitter, they will need to know what a tweet is all about. This is where "anatomy of a tweet" comes in handy.
By dissecting the tweet into its constituent parts and showing students what each part is about, they will not only make a head start in tweeting but will also transform their tweeting experience. Anatomy of a tweet is a phrase I learned from SandyK's blog. Sandy took the following tweet and decoded it in such a way that it becomes easier for students to know what each part represent. 1- Avatar This can be a photo or any other graphic that a user is known by. 2- Tweeter's name This is the name of the person sending the Tweet. 6 Best Twitter Tips Every Teacher should Know about. I just came across this great graphic entitled 5 Best Twitter practices and I thought you might be interested to have a peek.
Twitter as you know is a social networking website with a huge educational potential and Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has been posting a lot about it in the last couple of years. Check out the Twitter for Educators section we have here to learn more about how to use Twitter with your students, in your classroom or for your professional development. Have a look at the 6 practices included below and share with us what you think of them. Enjoy courtesy of edudemic. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: How to Twitter in 60 Seconds. Our Educational Twitter section here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning is growing bigger and bigger. I know all of you have a Twitter account but I am not sure if you all use it for educational purposes or not and this is exactly why I created the section I mentioned earlier.
I want those of you who still could not find their way through educational Tweeting to be able to learn how to use this social media first to grow professional and also to improve their teaching and learning. After going through the infographic below I decided to add it to our growing repository of Twitter resources.The graphic is a simple and easy guide that will walk you through the different steps you need to follow to tap into the educational potential of Twitter. Have a look at it and share with us what you think about it.
Enjoy. Building a professional learning network on Twitter SmartBlogs. Thanks for reading SmartBlog on Education’s Friday Feature. We’re here to help educators like you engage, innovate and discuss. This week, veteran educator and SmartBrief contributing editor Tom Whitby provides a framework for expanding your professional network using Twitter. For those who do not know, here are two basic Twitter principles: 1. If you only follow ten people, you will only see the general tweets of those ten people. 2. If only ten people follow you, only those ten people will see your general tweets. Although some might argue that the right ten people might be enough, I would argue that ten educators is a very limited professional learning network. The never-ending task of building a PLN is to continually follow really good educators to get the information they put out.
I often say that the worst advocates for using Twitter as a PLN are power users. How do you find those quality educators to follow in order to add value to your PLN? Hashtags add range to tweets. Twitter Tips we should all know, and care, about #edchat. I use Twitter a lot. Perhaps too much. I, like many others, have learned the hard way about hashtags, avatars, profiles, “tweetiquette” (or ‘twettiquette’), URL shorteners, keeping it real, keeping it professional, keeping it polite (well, I do), etc. Someone coming to Twitter now, all fresh and eager to get stuck in, might find it hard to find their own voice in the noise that the rest of us are making.
Top 25 Twitter Tips for Your Professional Development. Although LinkedIn gets a lot of love as a professional social media site, Twitter is a force that can’t be ignored by up-and-coming young professionals. It’s a great place to get connected and informed, and an especially good resource for growing professionally. But how exactly can you use Twitter for professional development? Check out our list to find 25 different ways.
Keep your Twitter profile employer-focused: Maximize the space that you have in your profile to share a professional description of yourself. Hobbies show personality, but accomplishments and professional interests might help you land a job. Professional Twitter names can be helpful, too. Once you’ve started connecting and sharing on Twitter, consider how you’ll manage your presence on the site. 3 tips for teachers new to Twitter SmartBlogs. A colleague who knows that Twitter is my favorite social space stuck her head in my room the other day with a complaint. “Bill, Twitter’s not working for me. No one ever replies to any of my questions. What’s the point of posting if no one is ever listening?”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Anyone who has taken the digital leap into the Twitterstream has felt lost and unloved at some point in their early work to use the short messaging service as a learning tool. To convince similarly frustrated peers to give Twitter another chance, I always offer three bits of advice: 1. Educators have embraced hashtags — unique identifiers that start with the # sign — as a way to efficiently share information with each other. Following the hash-tagged resources that are filtered and sorted by other teachers will make the early time that you spend in Twitter worthwhile — and if the early time that you spend in Twitter is worthwhile, you’ll be more likely to continue tinkering with the service. 2. 3. Professional blog | 21st Century Educator. Why I try to follow every teacher I can on Twitter.
Cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by stevegarfield Tony Baldasaro wrote a blog post yesterday that is getting a lot of attention regarding why he “unfollowed 5000 people on Twitter” and how he is going back to starting over. There is a lot of powerful thoughts in his post on how we actually connect with each other in this space: As I pressed unfollow 5,000 times, I realized that I didn’t know most of the folks that I was unfollowing.
Actually, it was more than that, I had no clue who these folks were. They were complete strangers. Now I don’t want to say Tony is wrong, and from my several meetings with him I can tell you he is an awesome guy, but I do want to offer a different perspective. Several years ago when I first started Twitter, I thought, like many do, that it was probably the dumbest thing ever. A year later, I was coaxed into trying it again and people blindly followed me knowing how I easily gave up on it in the first place. 10 Ways Teachers Can Use Twitter for Professional Development. This is our third consecutive post on Twitter. Now that you have a roadmap on how to use Twitter in your classroom and after you have identified with the different educational hashtags you need to follow as a teacher, let us share with you some ideas on how to leverage the power of this social platform for professional development purposes.
Talking about using social networking to grow professionally brings to mind LinkedIn. This is an undeniably powerful network that is more professionally focused ( you can read more about the educational uses of LinkedIn HERE ) but Twitter has also its own attraction that we can not ignore. It a huge base of users and is probably much known among teachers and educators than LinkedIn. I personally use both of them with a slight preference of Twitter over LinkedIn. Anyway, let us now share with you some thoughts on how to use Twitter for professional development purposes : Twitter Tips for Newbies. 10 Steps to Kick Start Your Twitter Network. 7 Reasons People Give For Not Using Twitter And Why They Can All Be... 5 Tips for Teachers Getting Started on Twitter « About Teaching. The Power Of The Lurker. Any one who knows me or reads my blog and Tweets knows I am a big advocate of social learning. The idea that we don't have to be the smartest or be an expert in everything should be a big relief in the classroom.
When I started teaching I did everything I could to make sure I knew more than my students. Looking back, I know I wasted a great deal of time and many teachable moments with that attitude. I don't have to know everything. I have a network of people that I am plugged into that can help me, advise me, suggest for me and point me in the right direction when I am wrong. And for all of them (and you) I am grateful. It's this idea of social learning, however that I have struggled with since I entered the space.
I have heard rumblings, now and then, that the only way you can learn on Twitter or other social networks is to contribute. Yes, it is very difficult to learn if no one shares. When I teach Twitter now I don't start with sign up. There is power in lurking. Twitter for Beginners - Resources - TES. Get your free 13-page Twitter Guide for Teachers. Crowd Sourced Twitter Guide For Teachers. This guide is specifically for teachers who are interested in finding out more about Twitter and even jumping in to the Twittersphere themselves. It is made up of a series of videos from teachers who use Twitter all the time, so it was 'crowd sourced.' Meaning people in the crowd each added a little until there was a whole.
Pretty cool stuff really. You can hit the About page to find out who is responsible for all of this... :-) Anyway, on with it...