Twitter Handbook for Teachers TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers Resources Other TeachersFirst Special Topics Collections Twitter is more than just a way to share meaningless tweets about your breakfast cereal or the traffic on the way to school. Who has time for that? For teachers, Twitter can be a powerful tool for professional development via quick sharing with peers and colleagues whom you may or may not know face to face. Twitter can also be an effective way to communicate from your class to other classrooms around the globe. You do not have to know everything about Twitter to get started. Hashtags (those funny looking things with a #pound sign at the start) are a way of indicating that a tweet pertains to a certain topic or a certain interest group/event.
Summer PD: Use a Web Site to Help Manage Your Classroom Many view classroom management as how a teacher runs the day-to-day operations of the class. In the 21st century, classroom management goes beyond the classroom walls. To keep students working and focused on the tasks at hand, a Web site can be utilized to make class time more efficient. Making Up for Lost Time In the old days (read: pre-Internet), students who missed class would come to the teacher and ask for missed homework sheets or other assignments that might have been passed back while they were gone. A teacher might then spend time directing students to the folder or making copies for the number of students that were missing. Think of the discussions that could have been had with all that extra time. Resource for Missed Materials Fortunately, the Web provides a much better way to manage class time, and my life became much easier with the creation of my class Web site. All assignments are posted on the site with links to all handouts. Live Blogging Increases Student Engagement
suewaters - twitter Twitter is like a notification/response system that allows you to contact near instantaneously with other people using just 140 characters. When you follow a person you will receive their messages (called tweets) and when they follow you back they receive yours. People who you both follow will receive messages you send each other. Watching from the outside, Twitter like the the dumbest thing you’ve heard of “Why would anyone want to tell others what they are doing in 140 characters.” Easiest way to find and add people to your twitter account is to ask an experienced twitter user to ask their twitter network to add you (you can always ask me here for help). A bit About Using Twitter While twitter is fun and great for conversations — keep in mind:Online is forever. Use @ replies when you are tweeting to a specific person — e.g if you were asking me a question you would start your tweet with @suewaters.Limit your use of DM (Direct Messages) to really important private messages.
33 Education Twitter Accounts You Should Be Following Whether you want to learn a bit about early childhood development and education or you’re preparing to dive in for a full-fledged career in education, it’s a good idea to have a resource for inspiration and news. Below, we have compiled a list of 33 education Twitter accounts. These accounts showcase bloggers, government officials and organizations, schools and teachers who make up the world of education, and in-turn, should give you a great picture of what working in education is like. If 33 accounts sounds like too many to sort through, don’t worry - we’ve created a short bio for each person on our list to give you more context of who they are, why we included them and what kind of tweets you can expect from them. You’ll notice that we have organized the list into categories for quicker navigation. All right, you’re all set – ready, set, tweet! Categories Administrators, researchers and teachers Education bloggers Policymakers, government and education organizations 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Pros and Cons of Social Media in the Classroom -- Campus Technology Social Media | Feature Pros and Cons of Social Media in the Classroom By Karen Lederer01/19/12 There’s an ongoing debate about the role social media should play in education. Advocates point out the benefits that social media provides for today's digital learners while critics call for regulation and for removing social media from classrooms. Finding a middle ground has become a challenge. As an educational tool, social media enriches the learning experience by allowing students and teachers to connect and interact in new, exciting ways. Despite these benefits, critics argue that there are serious risks to using social media in the classroom. Educational Tool Today’s students arrive on campus, fluent in Web and social networking technologies. Enhance Student Engagement Social media is an effective way to increase student engagement and build better communication skills.
How to Present While People are Twittering | Pistachio This is a guest post from esteemed presentations and speaking expert Olivia Mitchell. People used to whisper to each other or pass hand-scribbled notes during presentations. Now these notes are going digital on Twitter or via conference-provided chat rooms. Up until now, this back-channel has been mainly confined to the Internet industry and technology conferences. So the next time you present at a conference, instead of being confronted by a sea of faces looking at you, you may be phased by a sea of heads looking down at their laptops. Photo credit : Pete Lambert Benefits of the back channel to the audience As a presenter, the idea of presenting while people are talking about you is disconcerting. 1. As a presenter, you might be worried that the back-channel will be distracting. The more I’m allowed to interact and play with the content the more engaged and ultimately the more learning happens. Rachel Happe adds: 2. 3. 4. And what struck me was the dynamic of this meeting. 5. 6. 7. 8. 1.
FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter Atherton Bartelby is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, art director, writer, blogger, and photographer. He authors a blog at Curious Affairs. We've all been there: You're at a party hosted by that one fabulous friend, and populated with the best of your mutual circle of friends. The atmosphere is almost carbonated with excitement; the guests' personalities flawlessly compliment each other; and the conversations that abound are infused with intelligence, caustic wit, and a wide variety of knowledge that ensures the complete absence of any pregnant, awkward pauses. Then, it happens: someone appears who just doesn't...fit. A similar phenom happens on Twitter. Run any number of searches on Google or Alexa and you will arrive at a veritable host of articles offering endless lists of tips on "how to get more followers on Twitter." 1. ...or your user avatar is neither a personalized photograph nor reflective of a brand. 2. Clearly, Twitter is all about brevity. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1.
TwitPwr Today, most businesses want a website. Some already have one. Others want one. They don’t want to hire IT staff and probably can’t afford any. What Do You Want? The first step is to decide exactly what you want on your website. * What kinds of information do you want to have on your site? * Will your site require regular updates? * Will you be engaging in e-commerce on this website? * Will you need a database? * How fast do you need the job done? * What is your budget? Start Your Search Doing a web search for someone that has the skills you will need for your website will still give you a humongous list of possible choices. Often, the web developers you are pondering are not located in your town. The first thing to do when considering a developer is to check out their website. * IS the website well-designed and attractive? * Is it easy to navigate? * Are there any broken links? * Is the information complete (introduction to staff, company location, contact methods, etc.)? * IS there a portfolio?
Twitter 101- A Useless or Useful Tool? « Brian’s Power Windows Blog For anyone who’s read the news online or offline, there’s a huge buzz about Twitter. In this post I will try to describe what I’ve seen as far as how people use this Cloud based service. Here’s my take on what some, maybe most, people experience with Twitter their first time: People hear about itThey sign up at twitter.comPrompted by the big “What are you doing?” I’d argue these folks are missing the point of Twitter. Here’s a few ways to think about Twitter that you might not have thought of before – some might interest you, some might not: Search engine. Any other ways to use Twitter that I’m missing? Well, hopefully you can see some ways to use Twitter that are useful to you… As I’ve seen with Google, there are good ways and bad ways to game the system from automated tools that “Tweet” for you to just plain useless update. Like this: Like Loading...
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags One of the most complex features of Twitter for new users to understand is the hashtag, a topic with a hash symbol ("#") at the start to identify it. Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it. The hashtag is a favorite tool of conferences and event organizers, but it's also a way for Twitter users to organize themselves: if everyone agrees to append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and more likely the topic will appear in Twitter's Trending Topics. So how do you disseminate and make sense of all this hashtag madness? Have a tip to share on hashtags or a unique way you utilize them? 1. For new Twitter users, and even we veterans, figuring out what a specific hashtag is being used for can be a major chore. So what's the most efficient way to figure out those nasty hashtags? What the Trend? 2. What's buzzing on Twitter right now? 3. 4.
6 Twitter Games To Make Tweeting Fun There are endless ways to use Twitter: from posting what you're doing, to sharing links, to organizing fundraising drives. But did you know there are also a growing number of games you can play on Twitter? Although many of the Twitter-based games listed here are quiz or trivia-based Twitter accounts, they are still fun distractions, and sometimes a good brain exercise. Here are some of the top games based on the microblogging site: 1. Twivia is just as it sounds like - you answer trivia questions via Twitter. 2. Twitbrain is a Twitter game for math and engineering nerds. 3. Tweetbombing isn't a game as much as it is just a fun activity to join. 4. BeatmyTweet is similar to TwitBrain and Twivia, except that instead of questions or math problems, it sends out head-scratching word scrambles every hour. 5. WhoseTweet tests out how well you know your Twitter friends, or at least how well you can associate Tweets with Twitter usernames. 6. Follow Tweet140.
The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results. Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time. Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around, which is why we’ve put this article together for you. We’ve compiled an alphabetized glossary here for you so that you can just scan down the list and find the term that you are looking for, as well as a list of popular Twitter applications and instructions for incorporating Twitter into your website and blogs. Twitter Basics Then, set up your profile. Profanity
Follow Friday - How It Works A few people have asked us about #FollowFriday and how it works, so here goes… #followfriday is a great opportunity to attract relevant followers on Twitter. But before we get into that, a quick word about hashtags. You may have seen people use the hash # symbol in some of their Twitter posts. The hash symbol followed by a tag (for example #tps is the hashtag used for the Twitter Power System) is used to identify a topic on Twitter. #followfriday is a new phenomenon which we first heard at the start of 2009. To keep up to date with all the developments, on Friday, just use a service such as Tweet Grid or Monitter and search for #followfriday. Alternatively, click here to see all the #followfriday suggestions: Follow Friday provides you with three major opportunities to attract new followers; First, if one of your followers nominates you as a good person to follow, this will create a certain amount of interest in your profile. Still Want More? ShareThis