Twitter

1. Twitter Session
Are you ready to tweet?
OCSB Summit
December 8, 2012
Presented by:
Tanya Alvarez & Maria Calarco
(@alvareztany) (@mscalarco)

2. What is Twitter?
Twitter is an online social networking service used by millions
of people to send short messages to groups of friends. Twitter
users can send and read text-based messages of up to 140
characters.
Follow this link for an online user manual created by Pete
Cashmore @Mashable: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

3. Today's Goals:
Step 1: Educators Account
Step 2: Classroom Account
Step 3: Connect Your Class Globally

4. Why Should Educators Use Twitter?
Do you want to join in the conversation with other amazing
educators around the world? Twitter is a great place to
connect, communicate, collaborate & create!
Take control of your PLN!
● Share resources with other educators
● Participate in real-time online Professional Development
● Communicate with parents
● Get updates from other educational organizations

5. Step 1: Creating an Account
● go to twitter.com
● choose your name (real name, or interest name, or
organization)
● choose a password - 6 characters or more
● add your profile information, edit your bio, add a
picture, include a link to your blog or website...
● be selective on who to follow (what are your
interests?)
● you can block people
● find 1 person & see who they follow
● it's ok to be a lurker
● tweet: articles, links, resources, questions, answers,
● take & give

6. Who should I follow?
@tdottawa @mscalarco @llangsford
@rolat @alvareztany @nathalier71
@mrsmartel2 @edutopia @slackt
@cybraryman1 @discoveryed @nhms_principal
@ottcatholicsb @simoneroliver

7. Twitter Lingo
Follow
Following
@Sign
DM: direct message
#Hashtag
RT: retweet

8. Educational Hashtags #
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark
keyword or topic in a Tweet. Any Twitter user
can follow topics with hashtags or create a #.
Those hashtags (usually) mean something and
are a great way to get a tweet to appear in
search results or discussion monitoring.
Today's Hashtag is #summit10
Educational Hashtags

9. Guidelines & Best Practices
● Personal, Professional and Classroom
Accounts
● Use appropriate language
● Think before tweeting or retweeting!
● Your profile is open for all to see - but you can
make your account private (your tweets).
● Be respectful. Be fair. Be accurate.
● Give credit (via, @mention)

10. Step 2: Classroom Account
● start simple: ex: communicate with parents
● end of the day tweet: "What did you learn today?"
● to lock or not? pics or no pics
● get parent consent
● teach digital citizenship & safety to your students before
you start tweeting
● open a class account, use an avatar pic (clayyourself)
● learn with another classrooms
● ask questions (authors, scientists, museums, etc)

11. What Skills Will My Students Develop?
● summarizing skills
● writing skills
● communication skills (start conversation with others)
● collaboration skills
● reading skills (making connections, comparing &
contrasting)
● digital citizenship
● geography
● numeracy skills
● tweet our learning, discoveries, questions
● connect (authors, classes, parents)

12. Linking Twitter with Education
•Twitter is a way of establishing relationships which enable us to
exchange links, share interests, spread news and chat (Twitter User
Guide).
•Using Twitter to engage a young audience is perfectly suited to
kindergarten-aged students because of its simple format that is well-
suited to the attention spans and language skills of young students (Miss.
Night’s Marbles Blog).
•An interesting and feasible way to develop literacy (Ana Dominguez).
•Twitter is highly mobile. It provides classroom chatter, creates classroom
community, learn a sense of the world, provides instant feedback and
allows us to maximize the teachable moments (Twitter for Academia).

13. Moving from Teacher-Directed to
Student-Directed

14. Student-Driven Tweets
To demonstrate to the parents when their child is writing the tweet on their own, I
created a hashtag (#SKTWEET). It reminds us that the student is writing the tweet
by themselves. In addition, it provides me with an opportunity to assess the
students’ thinking, writing and reading skills and abilities!

15. Step 3: Global Projects
#werememberocsb
#signsoffall
#lunchbox
#decocsb

16. How to use Twitter in the Classrom?
60 ideas
Simple Ways to Use Twitter

17. Are You a Twitter Beginner?
Follow this link for 100’s of tips, apps
and resources for teachers on Twitter!
http://www.onlinecollegedegrees.
org/2009/03/19/100-tips-apps-and-
resources-for-teachers-on-twitter/