4. For the newbies...
• Follow at least 5 AOD Some
tweeters. recommended
follows:
• Just follow their tweets for a
little while without saying @regenuc
anything (say a week) Trust @vaadaenews
me you will already be @stonetree_aus
learning stuff.
@FAREaustralia
@NDARCNEWS
• Say something. Tell them who
you are and what you are
doing there, you will learn lot
more.
5. What is Twitter?
• Social networking &
microblogging tool
• Largely text based
• Postings of 140 characters
or less
6. Some terminology
Tweet = a message of 140 characters or less
Friends = People you follow
Followers = people who follow you
Timeline = a chronological ordering of tweets
7. Some Twitter
Conventions
@ = @ReGenUC (a profile)
# = #VAADA13 (a searchable term)
RT = Retweet (quoting someone else's tweet)
MT = Mention (mentioning another profile)
#FF = Follow Friday ( a recommendation to follow)
14. Tips for Conference
Organisers
• Publicise the hash tag early
• Ensure the hash tag is short
• Supply free wi-fi for attendees
• Provide conference updates via
Twitter
15. Organisations
• Provide staff members attending
conference with a mobile device
• Let staff know of any
communications policies they are
required to observe
16. Presenters
• Provide shortened URL’s in your slides
that support your point.
• Tweeters can include these links in
their tweets further informing their
audience
17. Attendees
• Practice writing in 140 characters
or less
• We haven’t covered it today but
Twitter clients like Hootsuite can
be really useful as can Lists
• Don’t be self conscious
(if other conference attendees
are looking at you they are
probably just jealous of the iPad)
18. Some Resources
Injecting Advice – Twitter for Drugs workers
http://bit.ly/cg4xS7
ReGen - Social Networking: Innovation in Education
and Advocacy
http://bit.ly/Y6opQd
Russell Webster – Why I Tweet
http://bit.ly/S6reUh
This workshop very much draws upon the practice wisdom developed at ReGen and is a product of our evolving understanding of both the use of social media and of workforce development. This does not happen in a vacuum. It involves people being willing to try something new. It involves a board and management team permitting the agency to give something new a go, despite perceived potential risks. And because of the nature of social media it also involves people from outside of the agency willingness to take part.Today’s workshop explores some of the things we have learnt regarding Twitter and WFD and of course we hope you tweet lots of it!
Not something you hear every day. In fact you are more likely to hear the opposite. Today’s workshop will have an interactive component. I really want to encourage you to start tweeting right from the start. Activity: Make sure you are logged into twitter. If you do not have a mobile device or an account then pair up with someone that does so that you can follow along
“Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page.”
“Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page.”Activity:
“Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page.”Activity: Search for #VAADA13Activity: Find a tweet that is interesting and RT it
So often when we think of workforce development we think of training. WFD however is whatever promotes and supports the acquisition of and application of skills and knowledge to make an effective workforce.
Work in the Alcohol and other Drugs sector occurs in a context of continuous change. New drugs and trends emerge, treatments are discovered or refined and we are continuously reviewing and revising our knowledge base. We need to stay abreast with this onslaught of knowledge in order to remain relevant to our clients, but here is the catch: Our professional body of knowledge is only ever going to get larger, not smaller. Dissemination of information to workers at the coal face of alcohol and other drugs services is often disjointed. Very few workers have access to either journals or conferences. Formal training while important is slow in disseminating new information and is costlySociialnetworkslike Twitter have the potential however to address to some degree the WFD needs of the sector while overcoming these challenges
This is a photograph taken at Maffra, a small town in Gippsland where I grew up. The red glow behind the house is cast by a bushfire around 15km away. The CFA, Victoria Police and other emergency services have begun routinely disseminating emergency information via Twitter. They are doing this because:People are begginning to access social media to get the information the want and/or needProvides information in a timely matter
Imagine for a moment that you are faced with some problem or difficulty that you have not faced before. Maybe it is a drug presentation that you have not had much experience in managing.Where do you go for information and advice.Most likely it will be your colleagues or a supervisor. You might even google it and start sorting through the reams of information to find the particular answer that you need. In all probability though the work has already been done, someone else has already done the hard work in acquiring the knowledge. What do you think would happen if you posed you question in a synchronous online environment to a large group of your professional peers? It happens all the time and it is called crowd sourcing. Twitter enables us to expand our learning networks, multiplying the reach of our questions and increasing our potential sources of knowledge. It is not dependent upon a curriculum being made to meet my particular needs at that time, instead it supports my immediate learning needs. It can address what is important for me to find out right now?
If you think about learning in our sector it most often occurs; both formally – education and training and informally on the jobOur teachers are often our colleagues and our clientsIt occurs as we need it. This is informal which is a part of life long learning SM and social networks can increase the efficiency of this learning as instead of sharing our knowledge with just one or two people in our teams we are sharing it with our whole network. It may also somewhat relieve demand for formal learning , decreasing costs.
Workers at the coalface of our sector are often inadequately resourced to be able to attend events such as seminars and conferences. Finding efficient ways to share learning then becomes critically important.By utilising social networks like Twitter to disseminate the same information we can potentially deliver valuable information to hundreds even thousands of people. Additionally, the nearly synchronous dynamics of Twitter interactions enables people not attending the event to query the information by asking questions and receive fairly immediate responses making the information received even more valuable due to the increased relevancy a question can elicit.Another bonus of the utilisation of Twitter at such learning events is the increased efficiencies that can be attained in relation to professional networking, not only with people who are physically attending the event, but also those people who are ‘listening in’ on the event hashtag and making comments.Imagine again if you will that you are at a conference. You have a particular interest in alcohol and violence. You attend a session at the conference that deals directly with that topic. Chances are that you will meet people at that session that share a similar interest in that particular topic. How many people are in the session? How many of them will you have the opportunity to speak with directly? By tracking the tweets relevant to that particular session you can form networks with individuals both in attendance at the session but also other interested individuals who are not able to attend physically, increasing the efficiency of your networking in relation to this topic area.