Are your professional development dollars shrinking? Are you looking to expand your resources? Have you taken a look at Twitter? The micro-blogging social networking site connects REAL colleagues in REAL time about REAL issues and brings together REAL collaboration and makes REAL ideas happen.
Last August Twitter put out this video to highlight how quickly tweets can get the word out.
Twitter is one of my favorite resources so I wasn't very surprised when someone tweeted a link to this infographic on How to Twitter by twiends.com. It is so good, in fact I'm using it as the basis of my presentation. It is a long graphic so keep reading. There's more good stuff at the end.
Are you ready to give it a go?
- Before you sign up, you'll need a photo or an avatar.
- Then go to Twitter and sign up.
- Decide on a @name. I suggest keeping it professional since you are trying to build a PLN.
- Twitter will make some suggestions on who to follow, but I suggest you begin with librarians, authors, publishers and ed-tech people to start. I created a brief list in goggle.docs to help you get started. As you go along, you'll find lots more people to follow (especially on Fridays).
- Start tweeting. Let us know about the lesson the kids loved or that great website you found. Don't forget to shorten your URLs - bit.ly is my go to site. If you haven't used a URL shortener, it is as simple as copy and paste. The site does the rest and all you have to do is copy the shortened URL.
- Need to contact someone privately? Send them a Direct Message, basically twitter internal email.
- Track a conversation by searching a hashtag (or add one to your tweet). The most popular ones you need to know right now - #edchat - for all conversations about education, #edtech - for all conversations about educational technology, #esl - for all conversations about English language learning, #tlchat - all conversations about teacher librarians. Of course there are also other great hashtags that are very helpful to beginners. #TT - teacher Tuesday, #FF - Follow Friday (people recommend great people to follow), #flannelfriday - children's librarians sharing flannel board activities, #sundayread - share what you've read.
- Read something you'd like to share? Re-tweet it, its easy, and it boost your visibility.
- Unfortunately there are a lot of bots at work on Twitter and a simple word within your tweet will conjure up some strange followers. Always check whose following you. If you don't want them to, block them!
- Read something that sounds interesting but you haven't the time to explore the link? Add it to your favorites. Favorites = bookmarks. You can keep something there until you have time to look it, or use it, or just reference it again. The biggest drawback, there is no way to organize them. I currently have over 300 favorites. Yikes!
Still need help setting up your Twitter account? This excellent (but rather long 20 min.) video by Jason Renshaw provides a step-by-step demonstration.
Twitter for educators - First Steps (Setting up) from Jason Renshaw on Vimeo.
