What's a Twitter Chat? A number of my blog posts are reflections of twitter chats, such as #lrnchat and #realwplearn chat. As vibrant a community these chats represent, I sometimes forget that the participants in these chats represent a very small percentage of the overall community of Learning and Development Professionals. At a recent ASTD Chapter meeting, I was reminded of this fact during a conversation I had with a group of peers. I was asked where I learned about something and I casually replied "We discussed it during a recent #lrnchat". I received silence and a few puzzled looks in response. If you've ever wanted to know how a twitter chat works, or what tools you can use to participate in a Twitter Chat, then this post is geared towards you. A Twitter Chat is a group chat that takes place using the social networking service, Twitter. There are a number of ways to participate in Twitter chats, and I'll be sharing different tools later in this posting. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. TweetChat TweetDeck
A Teacher’s Guide to Twitter | Once a Teacher…. Twitter is apart of my life almost every day because: - It’s a great source of news. - There are rich conversations among educators and edtech people. - People post entertaining, interesting, and very useful links. - I enjoy the easy interaction with others from around the world. Most people start off in a rocky relationship with Twitter. It doesn’t seem to be as easy or as useful as everyone has said, it takes awhile before you find your niche, and there is an overwhelming amount of information to deal with. But, just hang on – it’ll be worth it!!! This is a guide to help teachers, or anyone for that matter, have a smoother and more enjoyable experience. Getting Started Managing your Life on Twitter Finding People to Follow This can be the biggest challenge at first. Not Getting Overwhelmed You’ll hear people talking about the Twitter “stream”. Tweeting You’re limited to 140 characters, but this seems to do the trick. Other Ins and Outs @replies This stands for Direct Messages. Like this:
The power of Twitter | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional When our blogger went back to Twitter he found a world of opportunities to collaborate with other teachers and beyond. Photograph: Iain Masterton / Alamy/Alamy I signed up for Twitter several years ago but struggled to understand the point. What is it? Then, as the site grew in popularity, I decided to give it another chance. As time went on I began to take tweeting more seriously, posting more about technology and educational issues. I began to understand what Twitter was about and what a fantastic resource it was for a teacher. In fact, Twitter is the reason I am writing this blog. But this was the straw that broke the camel's back. All this from a few tweets? The teaching and education community on Twitter is truly inspirational. Twitter is a fantastic collaborative tool. The site is also a great place for discussion.
20 Twitter Hashtags Every Teacher Should Know About Twitter chats are such a great way to stay connected and informed in your professional circle , and education is no exception. Through education chats, you can find out about new methods for teaching, tech resources, even jobs for teachers. Most chats are held weekly, and offer an opportunity to have a regularly scheduled conversation with like-minded educators. Check out our collection to find a wealth of Twitter chats that are great for all kinds of educators. General These Twitter chats cover anything and everything in education, and represent a great jumping off point for those just getting started in Twitter education chats. #edchat – Talk to a variety of educators around the world through #edchat, Tuesdays at noon and 7 p.m. Administration and Behavior Check out these Twitter chats to get connected and discuss topics concerning school administrators. #AcAdv – Tuesdays from 8-9 p.m. Subject Chats
5 Tricks for Twitter Power Users If you love Twitter—and you also have a life—you probably use Buffer to schedule your tweets: To make announcements at a specific time, to send time-sensitive tweets like for limited-time offers, to communicate when your followers are most likely to notice, and to avoid membership in the tweet-a-minute club. If that’s you then you'll want to check out a few ways to make Buffer even more useful. Who better to provide tips than Leo Widrich, the co-founder of Buffer. Here are five tricks he recommends: 1. 2. “This is a great way to engage with your followers when you have only very limited time at hand," Widrich says. 3. Ten Twitter Tips for Teachers I’m a massive fan of Twitter. I have personally found it to be the best source of new ideas and tips out there, and it’s free! It can take time to build up a decent sized network, but once you follow enough people then you begin to see the benefits. I’ve written a short guide to Twitter for Teachers before, but I’ve updated some of the ideas and added a few more things that you can do to make your Twitter experience much more useful. 1. Twitter is all about following people. Once you follow a few people – look at their twitter pages and see who they talk to, or who they follow. Also – take a look at the “Who to Follow” page which will suggest other followers based on who you follow. Hopefully, those people you follow will also follow you back. 2. Whenever I get a new follower I check on their Twitter account to see if they are worth following back, or whether they are an automated spam bot. 3. Hashtags are short codes used to help keep information on similar topics organised on Twitter.
Who’s Dan Meyer? Math Establishment: Who’s Dan Meyer? Other: Some crazy young punk educator with radical notions about how we should teach math to kids. Math Establishment: No worries. His ideas won’t go far… Math Establishment: Wow. Could this happen in the past? On the Web we can write (and podcast and video and Tweet…) ourselves into existence. Image credit: in order to exist online 10 Reasons for Education Professionals to Use Twitter Can a message of only 140 characters really affect change in the world? Twitter is doing just that one message at a time. Last week I met with a small group of teachers and administrators to show them some of the merits of using Twitter as an education professional. Here’s what I told the group: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. My final advice is to take it slowly but be persistent. 10. Here’s to meeting you online!
Twitter Hashtags In The Classroom cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by danielmoyle For the last couple of years that I have been on Twitter, I have seen the value of using a hashtag to connect and share ideas between educators all around the world. This shared learning has made my Twitter stream a lot easier to filter so I can find stuff that is more applicable to some of the work I am doing. I am never limited to that “stream”, but it is something that I go to often. For administrators, I have used #cpchat to share and find learning shared by and for school and division administrators. (Here is a great list of educator hashtags and an article on how to get the most out of them.) For conferences, the first thing that I do either before the conference or when I arrive in the building is look for the hashtag (hint; if you have a technology conference or say something about innovation in your title, and don’t have a hashtag for the event, there can be a disconnect). Think of something easy and as short as possible.