Twitter

A Necessity for Educators in 2012

“Twitter won’t change your life, but it might make your job more fun and a little easier” - NEA

What is Twitter?  Twitter is an online social networking site which allows users to send and receive messages of up to 140 characters.  

Why should I join Twitter?  Twitter has really become an extensive online community for anyone to quickly share and gain ideas on any topic.  It’s FREE and very easy to use.

What role does Twitter have in Education?  Twitter is a really great way to communicate short and concise thoughts.  Some great ways Twitter can be used in education are:

• Have your students and parents follow you on Twitter where you can post reminders about quizzes/tests, upcoming field trips, websites to check out, reminders about homework, etc.
• Hold “Twitter Chats” with your students.  Allow them to ask questions or have discussions over particular topics after class with predesignated hashtags!
• When attending or leading, trainings and conferences, you can put a hashtag at the end of all of your tweets to organize them for easy access later.  For example, a few weeks ago the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teachers (CAMT) was taking place, and people who were attending the conference tweeted and ended their tweets with #CAMT12.  Attendees could easily find tweets about the CAMT conference just by searching the official CAMT hashtag.
• Follow other educators!  There are so many educators and educational companies on Twitter who post so many incredible links and ideas daily!  Some even host “Twitter Chats” on particular nights with certain hashtags!  Great way to communicate brief ideas with people from around the world!
• Use Twitter to build a Professional Learning Network (PLN) so that you can learn about the latest trends in teaching!

Key Lingo:

Tweet - a tweet is just the way to say you posted something on Twitter.  “I just tweeted that out” means “I just wrote about that on my twitter account”.
Follow - You can “follow” particular people on Twitter to keep updated on all of their posts.  It’s kind of like friending someone on Facebook.
Trending - When something is “trending” on Twitter it means that many people are talking about the same thing.
@ - The “@” symbol always comes before someone’s Twitter name.  If you want to “tag” someone in a tweet, or tweet something to a particular person you just put the @ symbol and their name.  For example: “@The3TechNinjas lead a great presentation today!”
Hashtag - a hashtag is a “#” followed by any series of words.  You can use hashtags at the end of posts to categorize your post.  Hashtags make it very easy to search for posts on particular topics, as opposed to searching on the web where you would have to sift through a lot of garbage to actually find what you are looking for.

Some great hashtags to follow are #edchat #edtech #ntchat

Educators really can’t afford to NOT be on Twitter.  Our educational landscape is changing very rapidly.  Our students are using this technology every day, and as educators we must continually be growing and finding new ways to learn and to reach our students.  Is Twitter perfect?  By no means.  But used correctly, Twitter can really become a catalyst in transforming your classroom, your school, and your teaching.  So be bold, step outside the box, and start tweeting today!

Follow us on Twitter!

@The3TechNinjas

@TechNinjaTodd

@TechNinjaStacey

Need more ideas on how to use Twitter?  Check out this great website for more ideas!

http://edudemic.com/2012/04/100-ways-to-use-twitter-in-education-by-degree-of-difficulty/

http://prezi.com/qkuytpaopfdl/twitter-for-education-its-not-about-your-ham-sandwich/