4. Why Twitter
• Authentic Audience
• Share good practice
• Share resources
• Receive information
• Participate in professional learning
• Learn from others
• Communicate
• Connect with other educators globally
• Connect with global thought leaders
9. Who to follow?
•
•
•
•
•
Look at who others are following
Read bios
Read what they tweet about
Look at the lists they are subscribed to
Follow & Unfollow – Nobody is offended
I am going to run through a few basics of Twitter as some of you may have just signed up today, thinking of signing up or haven’t used Twitter since the last time you signed up. There are also Twitter converts here who swear by the benefits of joining Twitter and I am one of them. I joined Twitter in 2012 ..after a few glasses of fine Shiraz at a gala dinner in Canberra and was given a tutorial from the Twitter Guru himself, John Goh, Principal of Merrylands East Primary School in Sydney. I started of with using Twitter as a way of keeping in touch with the many of the educators I met in Canberra. A year later I am following over a 1000 ppl, subscribed to many lists, manage several Twitter accounts including our local Soccer Club and have nearly 800 followers who may find what I share of some value every now and then. This presentation is essentially to encourage you to connect with other local, national and international educators and extend your PLN.
This is a fantastic clip someone tweeted out a long time ago…and I had saved the link. Thought I’d share it with you.
OurTeachMeetWAHashTag is #TMWA. As you tweet using this hashtag through the evening the Tweets will show up on the board alongside. We are using VisibleTweets to filter the #TMWA tweets. You can use other Apps like Spout which are equally easy to setup.
Create your own unique brand. Use a twitter name that is short and has no numbers (unlike mine)There are many people I know only by their Twitter handles.Always add a Bio because anyone who is going to follow you wants to know what you may be tweeting about. I don’t usually follow anyone who doesn’t have a bio attached unless I know them personally and then I make sure they add their bio.Add your photograph and don’t be the default EggHead. The sooner you hatch the egg the better. Think about what sort of image you want to portray and select your picture accordingly. Please, I urge you to not use pictures of your pets, animated characters of Bart Simpson etc. You feel more connected to a person when you have a photograph of the individual.All links to blogs, wikis etc that you post online and want to have a larger audience for or just think that others may benefit from your musings.Always log out of Twitter on shared devices as you don’t want someone posting on your behalf. Many have been caught out this way.
So you have your Branding.Now how do you construct a Tweet? What is the anatomy of a Tweet?Every Tweet can be up to 140 characters long. If its directed at someone or you want to gain someones attention use their twitter handleUse hashtags to filter through the twitterings.Add links, usually Twitter shortens URLs if not then you could use bit.ly or similar urlshortnersYou can Retweetsomeones Tweet to your PLNYou can Modify a Tweet and add your comment to itYou can add pictures from your device or on a mobile device you can take a photos and add to the tweetAdd a location if you want people to know where the tweet is coming from but as as rule of thumb, keep the location turned off.
This is a Twitter stream and it takes a little bit of time to get used to the language.