http://www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/

The Teacher’s Guides To Technology And Learning

The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter

Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for educators around the globe. Whatever skill level you may be, Twitter is downright fun and worth your time. So here’s a useful guide that we curated from Edudemic’s archives in an effort to put something together that was a bit easier to read than random blog posts. We hope you enjoy and will be regularly adding to this guide so feel free to leave your ideas down in the comments or by, what else, tweeting us @edudemic anytime!

Our Biggest Twitter Tips For Teachers

For many teachers making a foray into the edtech world, Twitteris an excellent tool for consuming and learning. There are a number of great resources out there to help teachers follow people who will be useful to them based on location, subject, grade level, and technology being used.

Many are also harnessing Twitter as a part of their PLN (personal learning network) to connect, share, and network. So how do you bridge the gap from reading tweets in your feed to truly harnessing the power of Twitter in the edtech realm?

Check out our biggest Twitter tips for teachers below! Care to add your tips? Do so in the comments so everyone can learn from your wisdom. This is a collaborative effort, after all.

Create, Don’t Just Consume

The best way to get the most out of Twitter is to use it. Using Twitter is a two part process. The first part is as a consumer, where you follow people, read their tweets, and learn from them. A lot of people stop there, which is easy to understand since that is the easy part. But the real magic happens when you share, too. Think of it this way: if you were having a conversation with someone and you weren’t responding, the conversation wouldn’t go very far, would it?

Connect and Network

When you’re just getting started on Twitter (or perhaps trying to add to or refine your feed), a resource for educational hashtags or guides to great accounts to follow are excellent resources to point you in the right direction. Follow some of the people you find interesting, exchange ideas and conversations with others using the #hashtag conversations you’re involved in, and when appropriate, take it to the next step: connect with them – either via other social media, email, or at a conference you’re both attending. Sometimes from behind the glow of our phones, tablets, and laptops, we forget to continue to forge our networking relationships in more conventional ways, too.

Share Your Resources

If you always find interesting things on Twitter, such as lesson plans, don’t forget to share your awesome resources, too. Along the lines of the ‘get what you give’ idea, the more you feed into the community, the more robust it will become and the more it will grow and become useful to you. We’ve seen a lot of resource sharing sites that are conceptually great fail when not enough people contribute to them.

Keep At It

Just like going to the gym once every two weeks isn’t going to keep you in peak physical condition, participating in Twitter #hashtag chats and interacting only occasionally isn’t going to make your Twitter community very robust. You don’t have to be a chronic Tweeter to stay regularly involved – but it is important to check in, reply, and participate to keep the conversation going

Guide To Education-Oriented Twitter Hashtags

I heart Twitter. If you haven’t yet, follow @edudemic to keep up with what we’re doing, working on, and seeing (like last night’s tech event with GDGT in downtown Boston!). Twitter has become a massive hit in education and it’s too big to ignore. So that’s why we helped assemble the 2012 A-Z Guide To Twitter Hashtags. It’s been an invaluable resource for educators around the world.

But that’s a very lengthy list. Lucky for you, our friends at Online College Courses repurposed our lengthy list and made it a whole lot less, well, difficult. The following visualization should be a handy resource for any teacher looking to make the dive into Twitter. Trust me, it’s a bit daunting but worth taking the plunge. Just don’t be surprised if you become an addict!

Want to download this graphic as a PDF? Click here so you can have a printable version.

100 Ways To Use Twitter

Twitter is too big to ignore. You see hashtags in commercials, sponsored tweets, posts, news broken on Twitter, etc. It’s quickly become an indispensable tool for teachers, admins, parents, and students too. Right now, there are still many (MANY) in education not using Twitter. They may think it’s tough to start using, difficult to monitor, and even a waste of time.

But what if they had a categorized list of the top tips to help you use Twitter? Our content partners at Online College have shared an incredibly useful set of tips that are too good to not share.

See Also: It’s Official: Using Twitter Makes Students More Engaged

From how to follow people to asking for help to the best tools to use, it’s all here. I hope you find this list as useful as I have and spread the word (likely via Twitter!).

Getting Connected

With these tips and tools, you’ll be able to get connected with the people that matter most to you on Twitter.

Follow experts: Get useful information from other experts in your field.
Twitterholic: With Twitterholic, you’ll be able to find the most popular users on Twitter.
Make friends with your competition: It may seem counterintuitive, but connecting with your competition can help keep you in the know and well networked.
Twitter Fan Wiki: Find a directory and more in this wiki.
Don’t follow too many new people at once: Follow too many people without reciprocation, and you’ll come off as a spammer.
TwitterPacks: Check out this tool to locate people according to their interest group.
WeFollow: Find people by industry or hobby using WeFollow.
Follow back: When you discover new followers, be sure to follow them back if they are interesting or offer value to you.
Keep your follow ratio balanced: Follow too many people without being followed back, and you will seem spammy, but if you have lots of followers that you don’t follow back, you’ll come off as snobby.
Localtweeps: You can use this tool to filter tweets by zip code.
Participate in Twitter events: Be a part of #followfriday, #musicmonday, and similar events to be a part of the community.
Geofollow: Search for others in your location with this site.
Twitterel: With Twitterel, you can find users with common interests.
Twinfluence: Use Twinfluence to discover users with good reach, velocity, and social capital.
Twellow: Use Twellow to find Twitter users based on category.
Twitter Snipe: Twitter Snipe will auto follow users based on your niche.
Talk to people about their interests: Show that you’re human by discussing things that are important to others.
Follow your followers’ followers: Check out the follow lists of people you find interesting and connect with them.
Be patient: Amassing Twitter followers doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient, and you’ll build a group of valuable followers.

Search

Put Twitter’s massive amounts of information to work by using these search tips and tools.

Twitority: This search engine offers results based on Twitter users with authority.
TwitterLocal: Search for tweets around a specific area with the help of this tool.
Use keyword tricks: Take advantage of the advanced search option on Twitter.
Use quotation marks: If you’re looking for a specific term, put it in quotation marks to get better results.
Twithority: With Twithority, you’ll find Twitter search results with authority.
Use hashtags: If you come across a useful hashtag, click on it to see what else you’ll find.
Subscribe: Keep up with useful keywords and hashtags by setting up an RSS subscription for them.
Pay attention to trends: Stay on top of the latest in your field by seeking out and participating in trending topics. For instance, students enrolled in political science degree programs may want to follow trending topics related to upcoming local and state elections.
Retweetist: Retweetist shares popular trends, topics, and people using retweets on Twitter.
Tweet Volume: With this tool, you can find out if your keywords are popular on Twitter or not.
Tweetmeme: Check out Tweetmeme to learn about retweeting stats for articles on Twitter.
Twitt(url)y: Find out about hot news with this tool that sorts URLs by how frequently they are mentioned in tweets.
Twackle: With this aggregator, you’ll be able to find news and more in a single destination.
Twitter Sniffer for Brands: Twitter Sniffer makes it easy for you to keep track of conversations about you on Twitter.
Twuoted: Find popular quotes with this site that follows the #quote hashtag.
Tweet Scan: Follow Twitter conversations by keyword and category using Tweet Scan.
Monitter: Stay on top of 3 keywords at once with this keyword search tool.
Pay attention to timing: Monitor the most popular hours for your Twitter followers, then concentrate your most important messages in those hours for more effective tweeting.

Organization

With these tips and tools, you can keep all of your information on Twitter well organized.

Use a tool to manage Twitter: Don’t let your research get lost-use a tool to organize everything.
Tweetdeck: Make use of this tool to organize tweets from various groups into easy to manage categories.
Don’t try to read everything: You will be on Twitter all day and all night if you try to read every single tweet from your followers-just drop in when you can.
My Tweeple: This tool will help you organize the people you’re following.
Tweetree: See your Twitter stream in a tree with organized conversations using Tweetree.
Make good use of alert tools: Make sure you’re not missing good conversations by setting up alerts that will tell you when friends and other Twitter users discuss keywords you’re interested in.
Tweet Clouds: Analyze your keyword usage with this tool.

Authority Building

Follow these tips and use these tools in order to establish yourself as an authority in your field.

Own your brand: Even if you don’t want to use your real name on Twitter, at least claim it so that no one else can use it against you.
Be retweetable: Share tweets that others will want to retweet.
Use popular tweets as blog posts: If you share a site or bit of information that turns out to be very popular, use it as a jumping off point for a blog post.
Use your real name as your Twitter name: Be more personal and authoritative by using your real name.
Respond: Don’t just sit in your ivory tower-talk back to the people who want to engage with you.
Share your credentials: Let people know why you’re an expert in your field.
Shake things up: Offer a good variety in your stream of links, blog posts, retweets, responses, and questions.
Just don’t spam: Don’t do it-no one likes it, and it won’t be tolerated.
Share information: Gain a reputation as an expert by sharing helpful links, resources, and more.
Be sincere: Be honest and considerate in your tweets and replies.
Find out authoritative keywords: See which keywords the authorities in your niche are using.
Discuss what’s hot: Share your opinions and resources on what’s currently moving on Twitter.
Don’t go crazy with links: Avoid using your Twitter account just to post links to your blog.
Point out interesting information: Don’t just talk about yourself, discuss what’s happening in your field.
Follow authorative accounts: Populate your Twitter neighborhood with people who have authority.
Promote your Twitter URL: Share your Twitter name on your email, blog, Facebook, and other locations online so people can find you.
Slow down: Don’t clog up your followers’ Twitter screens-keep your Tweets relevant and interesting, not inane and constant.
Don’t always talk about yourself: Talk about more than just your own agenda.
Be helpful: Spread goodwill by answering questions, introducing others, and offering recommendations.
Reply to others: Get involved with the people you follow and engage in the Twitter conversation with replies.
Show your personality: Show off the person behind the brand on Twitter.
Use keywords: Use keywords that are important to your field to attract followers.

Getting Value

Follow these tips to make sure you’re getting value out of your Twitter experience.

Networking: Meet offline with others in your field to get great value out of Twitter.
Be useful: Give advice, resources, and more.
Fill out your bio: Make sure people know where to go to find more information about you.
Use Twitter on your blog: Keep your blog updated up to the minute with Twitter.
Stop abuse in its tracks: Use Twitter to find out who is badmouthing you, and use action to stop it.
Connect with complementary businesses: Find value in Twitter by getting connected with others that can support your business or niche.
Enjoy ambient knowledge: With Twitter, you’ll be able to stay on top of news in your field around the clock.
Listen: Just listen, and you’ll find interesting and useful information.
Promote events: Use Twitter to promote live and virtual events like seminars, sales, and more.
Ask for help: Get instant feedback by asking for help on Twitter.
Meet your customers: Use Twitter as a way to interact with your customers, whether through the service or in real life.
Listen to your critics: Find out what people are saying about you, then respond to it and act on it.

Wait, Here’s How To Actually Use Twiiter

Honestly, these tools, tips, and tricks are just the tip of the iceberg. Use Twitter how it works best for you. Don’t feel like you have to be always on it, always tweeting, or always worrying you missed something. Because you will miss stuff. You’ll also find stuff you never knew existed. Use it how it works for you and just take it from there. Enjoy the adventure!

How To Connect With Students On Twitter

Recent work has demonstrated that Twitter is an effective media for engaging students:http://edudemic.com/2012/10/its-official-using-twitter-makes-students-more-engaged/ .

It is also an incredibly useful way to continue to reach students long after they leave the classroom. I teach general education science courses to non-science majors.

My goal is not only to answer the “why do I have to take this course?” question when they enter the class but to spark and encourage a life-long interest in science. Twitter is an excellent tool to reach and teach my students about science both during the class and long after those final grades have been submitted by posting content that engages and interests students.

To that end, I plan on sharing my twitter account (@DrCatalano) with my students in my next course.

In order to both entice students to follow an educator on Twitter and then to retain those students as followers I propose the following guidelines:

Don’t require that students follow your account.Suggest it to students as an option, or use it as extra credit if that works for your course.Remember that not all students use or want to use social media.Additionally, if students feel obligated to follow you and see it as an assignment they won’t persist after the course ends and any interest they show in your account will be perfunctory.
Commit to posting at regular intervals. For maximum value, post a reasonable number of times each week.Don’t post six times in one day and then wait a week before posting again; students are more likely to read all the tweets if they aren’t bombarded with several at once.
Vary the time of day of the posts.Don’t always post at the same time of day.Remember that students may keep different hours than you do, and twitter works by showing the most recent posts relative to the time of access.Additionally, if students are in different time zones than you are it makes sense to change the time of day in which you tweet to maximize the likelihood that they read your post.
Post links to content that is user friendly.Avoid linking to sites that are geared toward professionals or people with advanced degrees; remember your audience.Examples in science include popular magazines like Discover or teaching centric sites like NASA.
Know your audience’s interests. The secret is to connect the content to the everyday lives of students; avoid content that is too dry or inaccessible. Tie the content to topics your student demographic follows: current events, sports, and pop culture are instant wins.
Don’t just retweet, generate original links. Retweets are good but your students want to hear what you have to say, too.This goes double for tweets while class in is session.
Suggest people, organizations or magazines to follow. .. but explain why you think they are meaningful for your students.The idea is to encourage critical thinking, and by explaining your choices you help to build a library of reliable sources for your students to mine for future courses.
Be personal. Give your students glimpses of your personality and interests.Don’t be afraid to show your passion and pursuits in your field!
… yet avoid the overly personal comments. Focus your account only on your discipline and leave other opinions to a personal account.If you teach two different disciplines or sub-disciplines consider creating two different feeds.

Twitter Rules Every Teacher Should Know

We love to do stories on Twitter and how it’s helping teachers and students connect like never before. Many of our fellow bloggers publish stories on Twitter every day! So I thought it might be worthwhile to share the official Twitter logo and brand guidelines. They’re relatively simple and straightforward but worth knowing about.

Twitter is a major company worth a lot of money. Their branding is important. That little blue bird has to be very specifically used. Will the Twitter cops fly down and arrest you for not properly using it? Probably not. Will repeated misuse annoy them? Probably. In an effort to not upset the Twitter cops, then, here’s a look at some of the most important bits I think my fellow bloggers and publishers should know about the Twitter guidelines (notice the ‘t’ in Twitter is capitalized … that’s something you should always do).

See Also: The Ultimate Guide To Using Twitter In Education

For the full list of guidelines (there’s plenty more – definitely check out this page. Below are just a few of the biggest things I personally thought were worth adding to your digital toolbox … or brain … or whatever it is you store information in.

Rule #1

You can’t imply that your event, book, website, or other publication is endorsed or sponsored by Twitter. You also can’t incorporate the Twitter Bird / Twitter logo into another brand’s logo or anything confusing like that. This probably doesn’t make a big difference to you but should be noted by textbook publishers, students who are setting up an event or blog, or anyone else making some graphic designs with the Twitter logo.

Rule #2

Don’t use any of the below versions of the Twitter logo. Notice that it’s the old version of the logo along with some variations. Like everyone else, we’ve of course used the old logo and it pops up from time to time. We make every effort now to use the correct and updated logo though.

Rule #3

If you’re adding the Twitter logo to some marketing materials, here’s how to properly format it all. Same goes if you’re just adding in the Twitter Bird to other materials. Useful to know.

Rule #4

Always capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet. Seriously. That’s a little-known rule that basically everyone doesn’t follow but it’s worth trying to remember!

Rule #5

If you’re writing a book or need to cite a Tweet (we’ve covered citing a Tweet many years ago but check it out here) – here are a few tips. Make sure your book or publication’s title is clear that you’re writing about Twitter and that the book isn’t by the Twitter folks. If you’re looking to use Tweets in the publication, click here for details. For the cover of your book, you’re not allowed to use the Twitter Bird (not in the title either). You also can’t use the term ‘Tweet’ to refer to services that are not Twitter.

A Useful Twitter Cheat Sheet

Want to step your Twitter game up? Think you’re supposed to actually type a full 140 characters for each tweet? Not quite. That’s just one of the many handy tips found in this useful Twitter Cheat Sheet. You probably know most of these terms already but, as mentioned in the previous sentence, there are some parts that are a little more clearly defined than previous cheat sheets we’ve featured on Edudemic. However, this sheet is already slightly outdated now that Twitter has done a slight redesign. For example, trending topics are now on the left, not the right (as stated in visual below).

See Also: A Useful Social Media Cheat Sheet & The Ultimate Guide To Using Twitter In Education

In any case, what are the most important parts of using Twitter that you’d want others to know about? A keyboard shortcut? A handy way to retweet? A third-party client you can’t live without? Weigh in down in the comments as Katie and I work on building our own, more detailed, Twitter cheat sheet! Looking forward to your tips! Feel free to email them to us too by sending them to edudemic [at] gmail.com

Twitter Tips For Students and Teachers

Figuring out the proper way to leverage one of the most popular learning tools on the planet can be tough. We at Edudemic do regular features where we offer tips and advice on how to properly leverage Twitter. If you’re a student, parent, or teacher, Twitter can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal of learning resources. So we figured a few Twitter tips for students and others might be in order.

See Also: A Visual Guide To Twitter For Beginners

Twitter can open up new worlds to just about anyone involved in education. Parents can connect with one another and their children’s teachers, students can collaborate or participate in hashtag chats, and teachers can build a robust professional / personal learning network (PLN).

Actually complete your bio. You’ll get more mileage out of your Twitter account if you actually create a profile that says something about you, offering potential followers information about your interests, professional or otherwise.
Learn the basics. Learn the basic terminology for Twitter and the major functions it can perform by doing a little reading on helpful social media blogs beforehand. You’ll thank yourself later.
Get some style. Before you send out your first tweet, decide what kind of tweeter you want to be. The London School of Economics and Political Science offers up three major styles here so you can learn more about the subject.
Learn from others. One of the best ways to learn how to use Twitter is to spend some time seeing how others have set up and been using their accounts. Luckily, there are tons of other academics on Twitter to learn from.
Don’t be mean. The Internet is full of people who are all too happy to say some pretty harsh things, but just because they’re incredibly tactless doesn’t mean you have to be. Never say anything on Twitter you wouldn’t want people to find out about, or wouldn’t say in any other situation. If people are hassling you, ignore them and move on.
Announce that you’ll be joining a hashtag chat or conference. If you’re going to be tweeting more than usual, let your followers know in advance so they can choose to tune out if they’re not interested in your live tweeting or chatting.
Actually respond in a reasonable amount of time. If someone asks you a question or directs a tweet your way, respond as soon as you can, just like with email or any other digital communication, especially if you’re using Twitter in your courses.
Be gracious and say thank you. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way on Twitter. If someone helps you out or shares your research, don’t forget to say thanks.
Make mistakes. No one is perfect, and if you’re new to Twitter you’re probably going to have a few gaffes along the way as you learn the ropes. That’s OK! Don’t let it slow your enthusiasm for using the social site.
Start your own hashtag chat. Twitter chats have exploded in popularity in recent months, so get in on the trend while the getting’s good. Start your own chat on an academic topic, or chime in on other bigger existing chats for a chance to network.
Find and use some hashtags. You’ll make it easier for others to find your tweets if you add a few relevant hashtags here and there.
Do ‘Follow Friday’. Every Friday, Twitter explodes with suggestions on who to follow. Offer up your own and you may just end up in someone else’s suggestions.
Share the stuff you’re reading. Reading a story on a site like Edudemic? Found an amazing article in pop-science about your research field? Share it! If it’s interesting, it’ll probably get retweeted and passed around, and you might just interest a student or two to boot.
Reach out and connect with someone. Not everyone you connect with on Twitter has to be in your field or even in academia. In fact, you might enrich your research and your professional life by reaching out to other fields and professions.
Do some backchannel talks. Whether you have students post to Twitter during class or ask them to share comments during a presentation, these backchannel talks can help facilitate conversation and provide a record of a shared learning experience.
Create your own classroom hashtag. One way to keep classroom tweets organized is by having a shared hashtag that all students use. Just make sure no one else is using it!
Connect Twitter to Moodle or Blackboard. You can help push students to interact using Twitter by adding a Twitter widget to your Blackboard or Moodle site for the class. Follow the instructions here to get started.
Don’t mandate your students follow you on Twitter. Don’t force students to follow you on Twitter unless it’s part of the course. Let them decide to follow or not.
Be happy (see #5 above). You don’t have to be super serious on Twitter to earn students’ respect. In fact, loosening up could just help improve your rapport with your students.
Live-tweet a conference or event (see #6). Share your conference-going experience by tweeting updates about it throughout the day to your followers.
Share some of your lesson plans. Educators and academics can come together to share and collaborate on lesson plans quite easily using Twitter.
Collaborate with other teachers / parents / students. If you find you have similar interests with another academic, use Twitter to work together on research ideas, classroom solutions, and other topics.
Collaborate with other classrooms in your school, district, or another country.Why work alone when you can connect with other college classrooms? That’s just what many college classes are doing these days.
Host reading discussions. Holding a reading discussion over Twitter gives everyone a chance to chime in, even shy students who might not otherwise speak up.
Actually use Twitter for writing assignments. Want to teach your students the art of brevity? Assign them poetry or prose to be written on Twitter.

What Twitter tips would you offer? These are just a couple dozen but there are certainly more that should be added! What is the biggest tip you’d offer to a parent? To a student? To a teacher? Share them down in the comments and I’ll update this list!