1. Twitter for Professional
Development
Alida Hanson
Weston High School
March 4, 2013 MSLA Conference
@alidahanson

2. Welcome
• Please boot up your device
• Please log on to your Twitter account
At the end of this session you will know how to:
• Read all the parts of a tweet
• Find good people to follow
• Use hashtags
• Tweet with impeccable Twitter etiquette

4. What stops you from using Twitter?
Confess on Wallwisher
http://padlet.com/wall/mslatwitter

5. Twitter Vocabulary
Tweet: a message of 140 characters or less posted
Retweet: 1. A tweet that is repeated by another person on Twitter
(noun). 2. To repeat another person’s tweet to your followers
(verb) Synonym: RT Variation: MT
Favorite: 1. Distinguish a tweet as important (verb).
DM: Acronym for Direct Message. Best not to use this for sensitive
info—you may inadvertently tweet to your entire stream (noun and
verb).
Follow: 1. Invite a person’s tweets to appear in your stream (verb). 2. A
person who follows you (noun).
Hashtag: # A tagging convention invented by Twitter users. Hashtags
help us find topics on Twitter (noun).
@: This is like a stamp on an envelope. If you write “@alidahanson”
your tweet will find it’s way into my “mentions” mailbox.

6. @alidahanson’s Twitter account
https://twitter.com/alidahanson

8. Challenge: Follow 50 people—GO!
• Search for
authors, librarians, journalists, magazines, newsp
apers, blogs
• Mine the lists of people they follow
• Tweet your finds to our class hashtag
#mslatwitter
• Example:
“following @shellterrell because she posts great
links my teachers will love #mslatwitter”
• Mine the hashtag for more people to follow
• Share with your neighbor

9. Challenge: Explore, identify and
explain 25 Hashtags—GO!
• Use http://bit.ly/112G4KH for sources
• Tweet your hashtags and explanations to our
class hashtag #mslatwitter
• Example:
“recommend #sschat for social studies teachers.
Tweetups on Tuesdays 8-9pm EST. #mslatwitter”
• Share with your neighbor

10. 10 Twitter Commandments
• Be nice
• Be yourself
• Stay on topic; keep your tweet balance 90%
professional, 10% personal
• Design a profile page that says something about you
• Say “thank you” often, especially for retweets
• Try to talk to one person every day
• Stay positive
• Follow 100 people for 1 month before you give up on
Twitter
• Craft your tweets carefully for clarity and completeness.
Everyone should be able to understand what you’re saying.
• Report spammers and make sure that everyone who
follows you is a real person

11. Twitter Clients
• Hootsuite (analytics, multiple accounts)
• Tweetdeck (follow multiple saved searches)
• Storify (collect and share tweets)
• Mobile Apps (tweet from your phone)
• Diigo IFTTT (integrate Twitter with Diigo)

12. Photo Credits
• All photos were used with permission of Flickr
user The Daring Librarian (AKA Gwyneth Jones).
And guess where I found out about them?
Twitter!
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/8040376
757/sizes/o/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/7042054
455/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/6895952
490/