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Twitter in Education – Barriers and possible solutions?

Twitter in Education – Barriers and possible solutions?
After a wry commentary on the ‘10 Stages of Twitter‘ many educators have commented on the barriers that exist to twitter use. As a proposed channel of communication for iPad use in school, it is important to investigate these barriers and address them for staff. ACCESS – It is all very well popping onto twitter if you have a smartphone that allows you access with one tap of an icon. It is a very different experience if you are logging in via the website just to scroll through a timeline you don’t engage withUNDERSTANDING – Twitter fans have countless tales to tell about colleagues who ‘don’t get twitter’. A number of solutions have been suggested to remove these barriers and are proving fruitful alongside our iPad trial: Allow time for twitter professional development with any presentation immediately followed up with individual trouble-shooting and supportCreate a ‘ring-fenced‘ twitter trial zone.

Have you heard of the MFL Twitterati? « Network for Languages London The mainstream media often portray Twitter as a sensationalist vehicle for attention-seeking celebrities to broadcast the trivial minutiae of their everyday lives. This is a shame I feel as in my humble opinion, the social networking site is in fact the most powerful tool for improving teachers’ professional development there has ever been … ever … and it’s free! Does this news sell papers though? Probably not! I personally don’t care what Jonathan Ross has for breakfast or how many million followers Lady Gaga has which is why I don’t follow them on Twitter. What I am interested in is connecting with innovative educators from around the world, sharing ideas and having meaningful discussions about the issues of the day. In 2007, when I joined Twitter, the number of language teachers from the UK using the service were few and far between. I created the list MFL Twitterers to give language teachers a helping hand to ‘get’ Twitter by giving them a ready-made community to follow.

How To Use Facebook to Build and Maintain a Customer Base If you have just started a new web business or you’d like to but don’t know how to get the word out about it, Facebook is your friend. By using Facebook you can find potential customers, keep them up-to-date about your business and maintain their loyalty. Here are the ways you can build and maintain a solid customer base for your new web business on Facebook. Create a Facebook Page for Your Business This has become a MUST for any web business. By creating a page, you can allow fans to “like” your page, which will give your business more visibility. Use Your Friends If you already have a personal Facebook account and a long list of friends and family members, you can advertise your new web business through them. Build Expectations Looking for a way to create excitement and buzz for your business? Keep Everything Up-to-Date Keeping your Facebook accounts updated is an important job of maintaining your new online business. The Author Pamelia can be contacted at pamelia.brown@gmail.com 255inShare

The language of Twitter: the rise of MFL teachers online | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional Ever since I was first inspired by the power of technology for enhancing language learning, I've been passionate about connecting with similar enthusiastic educators. Starting my blog Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom in 2006 and posting about my own and others' adventures in and out of the classroom with web 2.0 tools proved to be a great way of drawing people in, building a community and sharing ideas. The Isle of Wight Conferences I organised from 2006 to 2008 focused on innovative uses of ICT in MFL and helped colleagues from all over the country to meet face to face and make deeper connections with each other as a result. Joining Twitter in 2007 made it easier to interact on a more regular basis not only with the growing numbers of language teachers interested in innovative use of ICT in their teaching, but also helped me get to know the wider edtech community. It's not all virtual sharing of course. But does all this tweeting affect what goes on in the classroom?

10 Ways To Launch and Promote A Product Using Social Media Launching a product using social media provides multi-media rich global platforms that makes it easy for each social network community to share the message and let other people know about your brand. Promoting, marketing and launching any product globally was usually left to multi-nationals with big budgets and access to prime time TV and other expensive mass media and to be effective required multi-million dollar budgets. Here is a case study of Guy Kawasaki’s launch and promotion of his book ‘Enchantment The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions‘ and how he used a multi channel social media marketing strategy and tactics that can be applied to any product. This approach or a subset of his campaign can be applied by anyone with the right discipline and appropriate resources and ‘yes’ you will need a marketing budget but it will not need to be 6 or 7 figures. So how did he launch and promote his book using social media? Primary Goal: Cost: Approximately $2,700 Primary Goal Main Goal:

Teachers – The 10 Stages of Twitter Stage 1 Sign up to twitter following persuasion/pestering by colleagues. Follow Stephen Fry, a famous sportsman/popstar and a news channel. Read a few tweets, don’t understand what the fuss is about and mock anyone who uses twitter. Stage 2 Overhear colleagues chatting about twitter and a great article they found. Stage 3 Think about posting first tweet. Stage 4 Upon realising you have no followers ask colleagues how to get them? Stage 5 Have a mini twitter conversation with colleague, even retweet a couple of statements. Stage 6 Practise a couple of tweets that include @names and hashtags. Stage 7 Retweet any link you find interesting as people might read them. Stage 8 Thank colleagues for introducing you to twitter, impressed with the knowledge you have gleaned and your growing number of followers. Stage 9 Reflect that twitter is an incredibly positive place and everyone is full of praise. Stage 10 (the reason for this post) When seeking opinion from a range of people, ask PLN to respond.

Is Content Marketing the Hot New Trend? - Infographic It was in 2008 that I realised the power of creating and marketing unique content to pull people to your website and blog. That was one of the primary reasons I started jeffbullas.com. I discovered this when I stumbled upon Hubspot, a company that was one of the early innovators of content marketing. Their marketing was refreshing change to “old school” marketing and was based upon creating attention through attraction with blog articles and free ebooks. It was the dawn of “pull marketing” or “inbound marketing” rather than push strategies such as telemarketing and direct mail. Fast forward to 2012 and it appears that there is a growing groundswell of activity and interest in content marketing is racheting up. This momentum is not only for B2B but B2C is starting to adopt this marketing philosophy and Coca Cola has created a brand new marketing strategy based upon this emerging trend. Other companies such as American Express are also embracing this trend. More Reading 416inShare

A Comprehensive Index to Educational Hashtags Teachers Must Know about If you are still trying to figure out what educational hashtags teachers are using then you do not need to go anywhere else, I got it covered here thanks to Chiew Pang document. Pang created an open document using Google Docs and named it " The Unofficial Index to Twitter Hashtags ". I have gone thorough the entire page and found it really helpful so I thought you might want to have a look as well. See also : Teacher's Guide to The Use of Hashtags in Education Here is the link for the entire document that Pang created and below are the hashtags it contains. Besides hashtags the document also features several important tips on how and why to use educational hashtags .

Database Error In today’s highly-connected world, effective marketing is no longer about broadcasting content and promotions. Talking at your customers just doesn’t fly — that’s the old way. Social media has changed (for the better) the way businesses connect and communicate with their customers and prospects. Consumers want more than just content; they want to get to know the people behind the brand, they want to hear from other consumers and they want to be heard and acknowledged. Tools for Engaging The tools for engaging your audience include both social media and email. Leverage the Strength of Email and Social Media Because of the real-time nature of the newsfeed and other factors like the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm, email remains the best way to get your message heard. It’s no longer enough to just provide solid content, it has to be heard and made easy to share. More Reading Author: Mark Schmulen is the General Manager of Social Media at Constant Contact

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 6 Tips Teachers Should Be Able to Do on Google Docs Following the Google Docs guides I have been posting here, I received several other tips to add to these guides. I know it is impossible for me to cover all the details of these web services but some of these tips are really important and should not pass incognito. As I told you before, this blog is a fruit of a collaborative work between me and you and I do learn a lot from you as you do from me. Now here is a round-up of the new hacks you can do on Google Docs\ Drive. 1- Preview Docs A couple of months ago, Google Drive introduced the option of previewing your docs before you open, share or download them. To preview your doc, click on the check box next to it and right click on the file name then click on preview, see snapshot. 2- Open Word docs files in Google Docs To open a Word document ( Docx) that is uploaded in your Google Drive all you have to do is tick the box next to it , right click on the file name, select " open with " then click on " open with Google Drive "

5 Cool Apps to Save You from Social Media Overload Do you need a break from social media overload? Your friends and colleagues are constantly learning about something new, and it’s hard to keep up. The only way to stay connected was to waste time going through piles of social media websites, blogs and news feeds. This torrent of data and information is a big problem in life today. In order to be connected with the world around you, keeping across it all and obtaining an understanding is important. Curation and control of this data explosion is necessary to keep your sanity. Luckily, developers have been hard at work creating some pretty cool social news apps that will help you to stop wasting time and to stay connected with what really matters. Here are 5 cool apps to save you from what sometimes seems to be a social media overload. 1. LikeHack is available now and is an intuitive approach to social news. What do I really like about LikeHack? Even though it is still in the beta stage, Likehack really does deliver what it says. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Tweeting as a Professional Development Tool - Blog IRIS Connect sponsored the MirandaNet lounge at this year’s BETT event. Whilst there, we had the chance to see several informative presentations and debates by different education professionals, ranging from the use of technology for collaboration, to visions for the future of learning. Two talks that we found particularly interesting were by Andy Mellor and Matt Pearson on the topic of using Twitter as a tool for Continuous Professional Development. We all know that CPD isn’t an end to itself; it’s about continually improving yourself and your practice through professional growth. Confirm your ideas Twitter is a great way to find out how others have dealt with a certain situations and to check that you’re going about things in the right way. Challenge yourself There are lot of people out there with opinions that can test the values we hold dear. Be enlightened Every visit to twitter will reveal something new. Grow a personal learning network

The Importance of Blogging – iPad in Education Blogging is important for educators. It allows for reflection, stimulates opinion and provokes debate. This blog only began as a colleague suggested it would be a suitable way to record thoughts on an iPad project in school. I am very thankful he suggested it! The rise of iPad use in education has led to clamour for research and evidence to support its implementation. It would be fantastic to have control groups compared to iPad classes and whole school 1:1 initiatives compared to a similar school without iPads. Having collated information about iPad projects across the globe we began our trial to see if it suited our school and students. We still clamour for hard evidence but this will not be available until the end of next year, in the form of national standardised test results. When reading the superb educator blogs that are posted everyday I feel compelled to write a blog to maintain the balance required to enhance learning. Like this: Like Loading...

Why Restrict Who You Follow? The iPad and Twitter Revisited | dedwards.me It’s a question that I have pondered over recent weeks. There is a growing trend for people to ‘cull’ the amount of people they follow on twitter. Why do they do it? Context is required here. After realising I didn’t need to see every tweet, I wrote a piece about how a learning network could be developed with the use of an iPad and twitter: ‘We are all learning together. Learning has always been based on exposure to new stimuli, research and communication. I, like many others, signed up to twitter as it seemed the pertinent thing to do. If I’m honest, I didn’t understand and didn’t make the effort to try. For twitter to work you need to follow the right people. As I became more comfortable with the etiquette of twitter I became more involved. Only yesterday a twitter conversation between myself and David Didau, about his superb blog, led to Andy Knill suggesting some tips to help me coupled with a link to his blog. As I see it, these simple steps offer me the best of two worlds.

10 social media mistakes you’re probably making It’s not easy being a modern citizen of the Internet. You need to know how to properly tweet, message, facebook, and stumble. That is, of course, if you’re interested in being a good user of social media. Let’s face it. Many of these tips below should be self-explanatory but we thought it would be useful to assemble them in an easily readable and downright fun visual guide. Which of these social media mistakes do you make?

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