Twitter for Teachers: A Guide for Beginners. I just received the following tweet: “I’m an NQT. Heard about Twitter being great for CPD but have absolutely no idea how to use it – can you help?” I’m still quite new to Twitter but I hope that what I’ve learnt in my first few weeks will prove helpful to those of you even newer on the scene than me. And maybe it will encourage a few of you to try Twitter out if you’ve not yet taken the plunge. Choose your name wisely Short and sweet: Tweets are only 140 characters long. Make it easy: Make your name both easy to read and to type. Have a uniform online presence: If you’ve already got a good social network elsewhere, using the same or a similar name on Twitter will help your other followers recognise and find you and increase the speed with which you’ll get going on Twitter.
Sell yourself in your Profile A picture is worth a thousand words: Twitter is a friendly community and having a picture in your profile will help people to know who they’re talking to. Build your network Talk to yourself! Teaching With Twitter. The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About.
As regular readers know, I recently joined Twitter and have had a good experience with it, though I’m skeptical that it will attract a following among teachers beyond those particularly interested in educational technology (see My Verdict On Twitter). In that previous post, I some sites that I found particularly helpful to me as I began to “tweet.” I thought others new to Twitter might find it useful for me to slightly enlarge that list, and so another “The Best…” list is born.
The title of each resource is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m just going to list them. Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About (Except for the first one, they’re not listed in any particular order of preference): What Is This Twitter Thing, And Why Should I Care? Nick Peachey writes about Building Your Twitter Network, with a focus on ELT/ESL teachers. 100 Tips To Be A Smarter, Better Twitterer (thanks to Diana Dell for the tip) The Top 7 Twitter Tutorials On YouTube.
How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN. For many people, Twitter conjures up the worst of the internet: disjointed, meaningless phrases, unrecognizable abbreviations, and endless drivel about where someone's getting their double mocha today. So, Why Tweet?!?! For the inquisitive educator, there are some jewels herein that can lead to stimulating discussions, new resources, and an ongoing supportive network. You just have to know where to look. To that end, here is a list of educationally focused chats that we recommend (listed by day): Chat for educators teaching 4th grade #4thchat Mondays 8pm ET/5pm PT/7pm CT Chat for educators teaching social studies #sschat Mondays 7pm ET/4pm PT/6pm CT Chat for music educators #musedchat Mondays 8pm ET/5pm PT Chat for ELL educators #ellchat Mondays 9pm ET/6pm PT Kindergarten Chat #kinderchat Mondays 9pm ET/6pm PT General education chat #edchat Tuesdays 12 noon ET/ 9am PT 7pm ET/4pm PT Chat for science educators #scichat Tuesdays 9pm ET/6pm PT Chat for arts educators #artsed Thursdays 7pm ET/4pm PT.
25 ways to teach with Twitter by Sonja Cole. 6/4/2009 By: Twitter can feel like a strange new landscape when you first jump in. It is not always clear what its professional uses are, or what to post in 140 characters or less. But when you start to think of Twitter as a micro-blog (and not just a forum for the personal minutiae of people’s daily lives), you will find that Twitter can be a valuable tool for professional development.
Here are 25 ways that teachers can use Twitter to ask for help, get lesson plan ideas, book and professional resource recommendations, connect with other professionals, and even host an online book club. First, a guide to Twitter shorthand. @username: creates a link to that user in your post.RT: Retweet, to copy someone else's post in a new update. 1) Ask for recommended books, lesson ideas, or teaching tools.Sample tweet: Can anyone share their successful SMART board lessons for 2nd grade? 2) Be sure to thank the people who respond.Sample tweet: @RickToone @evelynsaenz Very cool digital stories!