Presentation for the West Virginia Statewide Technology Conference

1. Introduction to Twitter Greg Cruey

3. Why is it so popular?

5. Who is this guy?

7. Sowhatexactlyis Twitter? (VERY) Short Answer: Twitter is a social networkingand microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters - Wikipedia

8. Sowhatexactlyis Twitter? Twitter is an online application that is part blog, part social networking site, part cell phone/IM tool, designed to let users answer the question “What are you doing?” – Educause Learning Initiative

10. Sowhatexactlyis Twitter? An Online Social Networking – an Internet service designed to maintain relationships. Examples include MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, & hi5. Microblog– an Internet publishing platform that allows a very limited amount of text in each post.

11. Let’s tour the site…

13. Bill Gate’s Timeline… A timeline shows an individual ‘s “tweets” in chronological order. The person can protect their tweets so that they’re private (only available to people they approve). But very few people do. And if they don’t protect their tweets, then anyone can read them whether they have a Twitter account or not. That makes sense considering that Twitter is a form of blogging.

14. Gate’s info & followersBill is in Seattle, has a website (duh), is following 52 other people on Twitter, and has something over a million people following him……he’s posted 160 tweets.

17. It may feel like it, but Twitter has NOT been around forever…

22. A Little History…

23. Twitter is the brainchild of Jack Dorsey. He was 29 when he started Twitter in 2006. Dorsey worked for a Internet company at the time, Odeo.

24. Dorsey worked with a partner, Isaac “Biz” Stone, to start a messaging service with Odeo. Evan Williams, who at the time worked for Google, decided to invest in Dorsey’s idea.

25. It took Dorsey about two weeks to create a prototype for Twitter. In 2007 Twitter got about 2 million tweets.In 2008 Twitter got about 400 million tweets.In 2009 Twitter got8 billiontweets.In Q1 of 2010 Twitter got 4 billion tweets.Twitter now has about 190 million users.

26. Jack Dorsey: Twitter’s CEO & Co-founder by david_shankbone – Creative Commons on Flickr by Joi – Creative Commons on Flickr

28. Whyis Twitter soPopular?

29. The first ten reasons… It’s relatively new. It’s not technical, but makes you feel like a geek. It can make you feel popular. It’s really, REALLYsimple.

30. VERY Simple…

31. The exhibitionist-voyeurrelationship.Celebrities…

36. It’s Mobile! (That means CONSTANTconnectivity for digital natives.) Geo-tagging and locations. Easier than getting subscribers for your blog. News and media feeds.

39. LinkSharingReal Time

40. LinkSharing Requires URL shorteners that can take a 144 character link like this http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=greg+cruey&aq=f&aqi=g-p1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=Cu10V5GlGTKn4N47IigOr_NWbAQAAAKoEBU_QtjHk&fp=fb153a59cce8ec69 And turn it into this http://tinyurl.com/22w5sol

41. Short list of URL Shorteners Tinyurl.com Bit.ly Is.gd Tr.im Tiny.cc Short.to Snipurl.com

42. Why is real time important? The link you put on Twitter today is there NOW. That same link will make it into Google in a week or so…

44. Why is real time important? Real time is also important because it make Twitter relevant as a search engine…

46. What Good is Twitter? Same as any other social networking site… …just different features.

48. Five Steps to Accepting Twitter? Denial – Twitter is a waste of time. It’s stupid. The Approach – I don’t get it. But I should try it. Isolated Microphone – Links to my blogs & pics. Conversations – Advanced texting. Real conversations. Microblogging– Publishing useful stuff & talking about it.

49. What Good is Twitter? It’s an information source…

54. What Good is Twitter? Twitter is quickly becoming a major marketing tool. Business Week did a feature in July on marketing on Twitter.

56. What Good is Twitter? Twitter can be a tool for citizen journalism. One Bush advisor thought it deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for the role it played in Iran’s election in 2009.

60. What Good is Twitter? It can be “Discussion Central” for meetings and conferences…

61. Notice the hashtag “#iste10” that defines the conversation Notice the “@” that lets people direct their tweets to specific individuals

62. What Good is Twitter? It can also be “Discussion Central” for classrooms…

65. Social Networking & Minors All public social networks create safety concerns for minor students. Most of them are going to use them outside the classroom anyway…

67. What DO Social Networks DO? It’s not about finding a new way to make strong relationships stronger. It is about renewing old relationships. It is about creating a platform for relationships that otherwise probably wouldn’t exist.

68. What Good is Twitter? PLN - Enhancing your personal learning network

69. I’ll start with the conclusion. I have found more resources and got more useful advice for professional development in 3 months on Twitter than in the previous 5 years without it.

70. Twitter as a PLN There are some very well known experts out there on Twitter and they are not posting about a latte machiato in Starbucks, they are providing links and opinions on bleeding edge research. New developments and products appear there immediately and feedback appears almost as quickly.

73. Some Important Educators and Resources on Twitter Just 10 for starters…

84. Finding People to Follow

85. Some Twitter Applications

89. Twitter Applications

96. Two Warnings…

97. Twitter Can be Addictive! You’ve been warned… Pic by carrotcreative – Creative Commons on Flickr

99. Setting Up Your Account

102. Greg Cruey WV teacher. Blogger and journalist. BA (Psych) from Augusta State University in Augusta, Ga. Grad Dip (Linguistics) from the Australian National University MS (Adult & Technical Ed) from Marshall University Certification in Ed Leadership from Salem University gregcruey @ gmail.com gregcruey.blogspot.com gregcruey.edublogs.org Member IRA, ISTE, CEC, ASCD, ACLU, WVAFT Rabid University of Tennessee sports fan…