Introduction to Twitter and ways that educators use Twitter.

1. The Power of Twitter
for Educators
Rhonda Jessen
@rljessen

2. What is Twitter?
● a crowd-sourced micro-blog
● the fastest growing social platform on the
planet according to GlobalWebIndex
● a great tool for connecting with educators
around the globe
● a new literacy?

3. What is a Tweet?
● a message, or post
● can include images and video
● limited to 140 characters
● often contains txt speak

4. Many Ways to Use Twitter
● Twitter can be overwhelming when you
first start
● many users start and abandon Twitter at
least once before they start using it
regularly (I did)
● there are many different ways to use
Twitter

5. Exploring Twitter
● Tweetchat.com lets you explore Twitter
with having an account
● you can search for specific hashtags
○ like #EdChat
● or search for specific users
○ like @CGeducation

6. What are Hashtags?
● always start with # (a hashtag)
● used to sort content
○ for example #ooe13
● sometimes used to add emphasis
○ #soexcited
● A-Z Dictionary of Educational Hashtags
from Edudemic

7. Setting Up An Account
Ready to try it out?
● Go to Twitter.com and sign up
○ You’ll need to supply your name, email
address, a password and a username (also
called a Twitter Handle)
● Try to keep your username short,
remember you only have 140 characters
per tweet

8. Compose New Tweet
● Once you are logged into Twitter you can
start a tweet by clicking on the Compose
New Tweet button
● try to keep your tweets less than 130
characters so others can retweet you

9. What’s in a Tweet?
Image Tweeted by @shareski (Dean Shareksi)

10. Changing your Twitter profile
● clicking on the Edit Profile button beside
the compose new Tweet button lets you
● change your profile photo
○ it starts as an egg because you’ve just hatched
● add your location, a link to your website
and a bio
● you might even want to create a digital
splash page on about.me and link to that

11. Following People
● follow people by clicking on follow when
looking at their profile page
● tweets posted by people you follow show
up in your Twitter feed
● Direct Messages are private messages that
can be sent to Twitter users who follow
you
● create a Direct Message by clicking on the
envelope to the left of the settings button

12. Reply, Retweet and Favourite
● Twitter is about having conversations, not
just monologues
● reply by clicking on reply
● share messages you like with your
followers by retweeting
○ retweets usually start with RT
○ MT stands for modified tweet
● clicking on favourite saves the tweet to
your list of favourite tweets

13. Twitter in the Classroom
● Kathy Cassidy uses Twitter in grade one
● Mrs Yollis uses Twitter in grade three
● Langwitches post Assessment in the
Modern Classroom has ideas on assessing
Twitter use
● These 35 interesting ways to use Twitter
in the classroom were crowd-sourced
● Bloom’s Taxonomy and Twitter
● Twitter as Assessment of Learning

14. Manage Volume
● Once you start using Twitter and
following a few people you might be
overwhelmed by the volume of tweets
● don’t worry that you are going to miss
something if you look away
● try scheduling time to devote to Twitter
○ can be based on times for Twitter chats
● try using a tool like TweetDeck or
HootSuite

15. Curating Content
● some users curate interesting information
into daily or weekly digests
○ Brain Pickings
○ often used in MOOCS
● other users collect tweets in Storify
○ The Beginnings of #ETMOOC
○ #etmooc Twitter Chat, Digital Literacies
● Infographic from Langwitches about
curating Twitter content

16. Live Tweeting Events
● some users tweet about events as they are
happening to share with their followers
● Langwitches PD 21Century style
● Live Tweeting an event
● Twitter automatically shortens your links,
but some users use URL shorteners to
make links much shorter

17. Want more?
● Edudemic’s Ultimate Twitter Guidebook
for Teachers
● Twittonary
● 20 ways to use Twitter with your Students
● Why Educators Should Spend 15 min a Day on
Social Media
● @courosa (Alec Couros) Using Twitter
Effectively in Education

18. Want to test our your skills?
● join me for a Twitter Chat about Digital
Citizenship tonight at 7pm MST
● we’ll be using the hashtags #ooe13 and
#etmchat
● this is a joint chat between The Open
Online Experience and The Post Etmooc
Blog Reading Group

19. Rhonda Jessen
@rljessen
rljessen@gmail.com
The Power of Twitter for Education
This presentation: http://slidesha.re/1j3qlEQ