Workshop as part of the PgC in Higher & Professional Education. Introduction to using Twitter as part of your professional role in a university.

2. WHAT IS TWITTER?
Twitter is an online social networking
and microblogging service that
enables users to send and read short
140-character text messages, called
"tweets".

3. QUICK TWITTER STRAW POLL
1. Who has never used Twitter?
2. Who has an account but rarely uses it?
3. How many of you use Twitter for personal /
non-work related activity?
4. How many of you use Twitter for
professional purposes – i.e. for your own
research/professional interests? For your
CPD purposes?
5. How many of you use Twitter in a learning
and teaching capacity on your programmes
/ with your students?
6. Do your learners use Twitter? If so, how?
7. Do your colleagues use Twitter? If so, how?

4. EXPLAIN ‘WHY’ – SHARE YOUR REASONS?
Where do you sit today? EXPLAIN in 140 characters!
Paper tweets
I have never used Twitter… WHY?
I have an account but rarely use
it…
WHY?
I use Twitter for personal / non-
work related reasons…
WHY DO YOU USE IT IN THIS
WAY? WHAT DO YOU GET OUT
OF IT?
I use Twitter for professional
purposes – i.e. for my own
research/professional interests.
For CPD purposes.
WHY DO YOU? HOW IS IT
HELPFUL OR USEFUL? GIVE
EXAMPLES.
I use Twitter in a learning and
teaching capacity on my
programmes / with my course
team/students?
WHY DO YOU? HOW IS IT
HELPFUL OR USEFUL? GIVE
EXAMPLES.

5. WHAT’S MY TWITTER STORY SO FAR?
When did I start?
Why did I start? Purposes?
How did I use it in the beginning?
How do I use it now?
What do I find most useful?
What am I researching as a result?

6. LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT MY TWITTER PROFILE
www.twitter.com
@drkatyvigurs
What does this tell you about how I
use Twitter for professional
education purposes?

7. WHAT DO I WANT TO TRY NEXT?
• Use Twitter with all my postgraduate groups – support
learners to use it
• Run Twitter CPD workshops with my colleagues
• Host a live tweet chat per semester for research students
(e.g. dissertation students on research design / research
methods / ethics / academic writing etc.)
• Encourage learners to host live tweet chats for their
modules
• Keep a Learning and Teaching blog and tweet links to
blog regularly.

8. QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? CONCERNS?
Work in pairs to come up
with three questions
/comments you want to
raise.
These can be about my use
of Twitter or the use of
Twitter for learning and
teaching purposes
generally.
Let’s discuss.

9. OTHER STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY STAFF /
SERVICES TO FOLLOW… (NOT EXHAUSTIVE!)
@mikehamlyn
@Krislines
@Jim_Pugh
@DrJamieBarker
@pgwjones_dr
@Russell_Spink
@StaffsUni
@daveparkes
@StaffsUnion
They all use Twitter differently
for professional purposes.
Check out what they tweet and
who they follow.

10. YOUR TWITTER PROFILE
• Why does this matter?
• Photo?
• Research/professional interests stated?
• Professional role stated?
• Link to your blog / institutional website /
LinkedIn profile?
• Look at other people’s profiles . Compare with
yours.
• You can change it whenever you like. Keep it up
to date.

11. WHO ARE YOU FOLLOWING?
How many people should you follow? Why does this matter?
Relates to what you see in your Twitter feed.
Should you follow colleagues / wider university staff?
Are you following your students? Should you?
Are you following colleagues at other universities?
Are you following other research organisations /
academics?
How can you find relevant people to follow? What
strategies?
Why would you ‘unfollow’ people? Can you re-follow them
again?

12. WHO’S FOLLOWING YOU?
Does it matter who is following you and how many followers
you have? Relates to who will see your tweets and
retweets (RT).
Blocking people & spotting spammers
Direct messaging (DM) – sending private messages –
remember ‘normal’ tweets are completely public (let this
guide what you do and don’t say/share)
Does it matter if people unfollow you?
How to interact with new followers?
Do you have to ‘follow back’?

13. INTERACTING WITH OTHER ‘TWEETERS’
Replying or responding to someone else’s tweets
Contacting another tweeter publicly – wanting to directly get
someone’s attention
How do you know if someone has contacted/mentioned you
or sent you a DM?
Using hashtags in your tweets so that a wider audience can
access your tweets e.g. #phdchat #phdforum #acwri
#socphd
Searching hashtags to see what’s been happening e.g.
#EdDSU6 #EDDPU #BERAypandclass – good way of
archiving tweets

14. LEARNING & TEACHING HASHTAGS (THERE ARE
LOADS!)
#edchat
#blendchat (blended learning)
#elearning
#pbl/#pblchat
#gbl (game-based learning)
#edtech (education technology)
#ukedchat
#edtech
#flipclass
#highered
#loveHE

15. FAVOURITES AND EMAILING TWEETS
How do people use ‘Favourite’ button (star
icon)?
How can you ‘save’ or ‘keep’ useful
tweets? The email function.

16. WHEN DO YOU CHECK/USE TWITTER?
WHEN DO OTHERS?
In UK most people check between 7.00-8.30am,
10.00-11.00, 2.00-3.00, after 7.00pm.
Different in other countries. Different time zones.
Some people send the same tweet 4-5 times in a
day. Why?
Should you bear timings in mind when sending
tweets?

17. TWEETING FOR LEARNING & TEACHING?
Identify how you could use Twitter for
professional and/or learning and
teaching purposes.
Everyone needs to come up with at
least 1 idea.
What would you need to do to make this
happen? What actions needed?

18. Staffordshire
Graduate
Attributes
Description – Consider whether the use of Twitter
could be relevant?
Discipline
Expert
Have an understanding of the forefront of knowledge
Professional Be work-ready and employable, and understand
importance of being enterprising and entrepreneurial
Global Citizen Have an understanding of global issues
Communicatio
n & Teamwork
Be an effective communicator and presenter – and be
able to interact appropriately and confidently with a
range of colleagues
Have developed the skills of independence of thought
and, where appropriate, social interaction through
teamwork
Reflective &
Critical
Have the ability to carry out inquiry-based learning
and critical analysis
Be a problem solver and creator of opportunities
Life Long
Learner
Be technologically, digitally and information literate
Be able to apply Staffordshire Graduate attributes to a
range of life experiences – to facilitate life-long
learning and life-long success