Other than having heard or seen the word Twitter in the media, this was my first exposure to a “Twitter” conversation amongst fellow classmates. The general consensus was that for those who did follow Twitter, it was primarily for professional use. Knowing that my daughter followed Facebook as a means to staying connected with family and friends, I automatically assumed that Twitter was a similar platform but as it seemed, used more as a communication tool to stay connected with “professional” acquaintances. I immediately dismissed the idea of following Twitter... I did not have any professional acquaintances that followed Twitter. Isn’t it interesting though, several months later, now having explored what Twitter is really all about, perceptions change.
Twitter Launch
First steps involved the creation of an account with Twitter and customization of settings, which was fairly straight forward. As with any new online tool, I preferred to provide only minimal details with regards to profile and bio information. I subscribed to follow the people required for our course, using the search option within the “finding people” area. Instantly, messages started appearing... and appearing. I soon realized that these short messages were written differently in that they included a mixture of letters and symbols. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Okay, what does that mean?” “What are they referring to?” Knowing that I was more than likely going to have even more questions, I thought I had better do some research and learn more about this tool. Before signing out, I shared my first “tweet”... “First time on Twitter”. I wasn’t sure what to expect the next time I visited...
Digging Deeper
Kist (2010) describes Twitter as “an online social network that asks participants to update their “followers” as to what they are doing in fewer than 140 characters“ (p. 3). (Well, that would explain the short messages). Again I wondered, what does one do if they can’t write the message in less than 140 characters? Thanks to a link provided by Lissa on her blog, I soon found some very helpful information that would clarify things somewhat. In a nutshell, here is what I learned;
1. “Twitter can help [these] strangers come together to create a community built on communication and collaboration dedicated to making learning" (Ferguson, 2010, p. 12).
2. When people you follow post something, it appears in your Twitter “stream”.
3. You may search for people you want to learn from by their name or by a keyword of interest.
4. You can simply watch and listen to the messages or “tweets”, click on links and learn. There’s no need to join the conversation until you are ready.
5. When you like something that is posted, “retweet”. The more you “retweet”, the more people will follow you.
6. When you join the conversation, begin by sharing ideas and links to sites of interest to you.
7. By using a “hashtag” in your tweet, it will give you more exposure.
(Ferguson, 2010, p. 12-15).
What was a hashtag? As it appears in the Twitter Twerminology, a hashtag is a “discussion stream aggregating tweets on a given topic” (McClintock-Miller, 2010, p. 18).
Return “Twips” to Twitter
Upon the next several visits to Twitter, I discovered that i had a few followers! And some were people I was not familiar with, or so I thought. As it turns out, one of the “twits” was a fellow classmate under a pseudonym. But the other was a reply from Stephen Abram, welcoming me to Tweetland! Very thoughtful! I also used these opportunities to find more people to follow, to read some of the “tweets” and to explore links. I felt quite reassured by what Ferguson had said in that it’s okay to watch from the "banks of the stream" until you feel comfortable to take part in the conversations. In life, I tend to be that type of person. Only I was finding the amount of information quite overwhelming and difficult to follow. That was when I remembered a class discussion suggesting the use of Tweetdeck to help organize groups or hashtags. I proceeded to set up an account and again customized the site. After some exploring, I learned how to create columns and to add hashtags, including #EDES544. Not only was it refreshing to see some familiar “faces” but it was great in that I could follow “tweets” that specifically revolved around our course! I could see the types of “tweets” that others were sharing and could also connect to their suggested links. By keeping Tweetdeck running in the background, I was informed of “tweets” through sound and a window that appeared in the corner of my screen.
Attempts at Sharing
Through my explorations of social networking sites, in particular Facebook and Twitter, I couldn’t help but notice how OFTEN some people chose to share and just WHAT they chose to share. Questions came to mind like, “Where do they find the time?” and “Are people really interested in hearing that?” While finding the time was definitely an issue for me, I was also grappling with the idea of what to share. Considering the company I kept, I figured I was hardly one to teach anybody something about libraries, or technology. I was able to settle, however, on sharing information that was both current and relevant to me. But isn’t that what everyone is doing? Sharing information that they care about and wanting to learn from others about the latest news/developments on a given topic? Hmmmm, Social networking... community of learners... collaborating... Twitter was starting to make sense.
Feeling more confident about the purpose and benefits of “tweeting”, I decided that I should make more of an attempt to attract “followers”. As recommended by Ferguson (2010), I decided to update both my profile (adding a free avatar image) and bio. This is important information as “people who are deciding whether to follow you will look at that to get a sense of what you care about” (p. 12).
Eventually I stumbled across one of those “tweets” that just wouldn’t fit under the 140 character limit. I learned that using symbols such as ‘&’ for “and” and ‘@’ for “at” may give you some room. Shortening URL’s through online services such as Tiny URL and BIT.LY can also make a difference. And they did!
Where to go from here?
Although it seems that some people only use Twitter for professional use, there appear to be many others that use it for personal use as well. By simply writing keywords such as gardening and conducting a search, I was connected to several “hashtags” or groups that have been created that are interested in the same thing. One such group claims they provide gardening advice which is something, living in an isolated area, is hard to come by. Although I am more specifically interested in greenhouse gardening, I could always create my own hashtag and “tweet” using that hashtag name, attracting others to join in the conversation. If this was something I was going to pursue, I would create two separate accounts. To help keep “tweets” and learning connected, I would have one account for professional use and the other for personal use. And speaking of professional, Twitter is yet another example of “reaching out to others” as a means of sharing ideas, learning, and developing my personal learning network. My hope is that even once this course is finished, I will continue to follow others that are in the field of education and teacher-librarianship. particularly those that are in the TLDL program.
Twitter in the Classroom
Having explored the social network myself (and considering it is open to all age groups), i can see where students would be thrilled to use Twitter in the classroom. Teachers could more easily engage the students as they develop literacy skills, meeting curricular objectives all at the same time. If I were to integrate Twitter in my classroom, I would initially create a private account where only those within my network could see my page. I would extend invitations to other classes both within the school and the school board.
Just as we do on Twitter, students could follow others, sharing information, resources and ideas about a given topic. To help reinforce both graphing and probability skills in Math, students could create polls and surveys through Twtpoll to collect data. They could then publish the results in the form of a graph on a class blog. To demonstrate their comprehension skills after a novel study, the students could take on the role of one of the characters and create conversations around key events in the story. “The students are creating their own fiction based on their knowledge of the writer, the time period, and the characters” ( Slideshare, 2010, slide 13).
Twenty Five Interesting Ways To Use Twitter in the Classroom
View more presentations from Michael Sauers.
In order to make these changes most efficient, we would need to invest in laptops as all of our desktops are currently housed in the computer lab. Cell phones are also not an option as we do not (yet) have reception. Nonetheless, my experience in working with Twitter is a positive one and yes, I believe we should “tweet”.
References
Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock, Learning and Leading with Technology, p. 12-15. Retrieved online from
http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20100607?pg=18&search_term=twitter&search_term=twitter#pg14
Kist, W. (2010). The socially networked classroom: Teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
McClintock-Miller, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter, Learning and Leading with Technology. p. 14-17. Retrieved online from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20100607?pg=18&search_term=twitter&search_term=twitter#pg14
Slideshare (2010). 25 interesting ways to twitter in the classroom. Retrieved online from http://www.slideshare.net/travelinlibrarian/twenty-five-interesting-ways-to-use-tw
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