General Descriptions What is twitter? –Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. What can we do? –Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. –Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.
- sign is used to call out usernames in Tweets, like this: When a username is preceded by sign, it becomes a link to a Twitter profile. Direct Message - Also called a DM. These messages are private between only the sender and recipient. Tweets become DMs when they begin with "d username" to specify who the message is for. FF - #FF stands for "Follow Friday." Twitter users often suggest who others should follow on Fridays by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. Handle - A user's "Twitter handle" is the username they have selected and the accompanying URL, like so: (ie Twitter.com/StephanieNelson) Hashtag - The # symbol is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Can search by hashtags to see all messages that include that particular hashtag. ie – in the following message, #sofresh is the hashtag used. If you search #sofresh, all tweets that use that hashtag from all users (whether you follow them or not) will show in the results:
Glossary Mention - Mentioning another user in your Tweet by including sign followed directly by their username is called a "mention". Also refers to Tweets in which your username was included. ie – in the @print4color are @print4color Great seeing you yesterday at #sofresh - I really enjoyed our conversations.sarahbradleycltStephanieNelsonprint4color#sofresh Reply - Tweet posted in reply to another user's message, usually posted by clicking the "reply" button next to their Tweet in your timeline. Always begins Retweet – Also known as RT. A Tweet by another user, forwarded to you or by you. Often used to spread news or share valuable findings on Twitter. Tweeps/Tweeple – people/friends on Twitter Via – Like a retweet. Used with to attribute something that you saw with another user. Good when you are not directly quoting word for word, but paraphrasing or passing a link along.
General Twitter Tips & Tricks Twitter is all about INTERACTION. So go ahead and start a conversation! It’s a Give & Take – RT your followers if you like what they post. Then they’ll be more likely to RT you as well. If you want something retweeted, try to stick to 120 characters or less – it makes it easier to retweet. Keep your posts relevant to your audience. Post often, but not just for the sake of posting. Think & proofread before you hit send, especially if tweeting from your phone. (In other words, learn from Stephanie’s mistakes.)
Following Your Followers 2 Schools of Thought It’s a Must: Thought is that you’re showing your followers respect by following them back, that you believe they also have something important to say. It’s Up to You: You should have the right to decide who you follow and why. I’m of the “It’s Up to You” philosophy. Once you start getting a lot of followers, if you follow all of them back, you’ll never get anything else done. And chances are you won’t be interested in what all of your followers are saying. My tactic is: I check my followers about once every week or so. If I see I have new followers, I go into their profiles and look at the last few items they’ve posted. If they look interesting to me, I follow them back; if not, I don’t.
Following Tips Don’t follow more people than you can handle. You’ll get too many tweets and miss the ones that actually interest you. It’s also no crime to unfollow someone, whether it’s because you don’t like what they tweet, they tweet too much for you or for any other reason!
Personal Twitter Tips This is a good way to build your personal brand online. Own it. What would you want people to see you sharing? Along the same lines…If you wouldn’t want your mama to see it, don’t post it. Be careful with linking Foursquare with Twitter and Facebook. Don’t post every check-in to both outlets. One, it ups your chances of gaining a stalker (especially if your profile pic is an actual picture of you). Two, not everyone is going to care about your every move. Some check-ins are ok on both, but uncheck one or the other on most check-ins. Be careful of public messages. People following both participants can see both sides of the conversation. If something’s sensitive, DM the person.
What separates it from other similar technologies? –Simple, quick and frequent (vs. blogs) –Less pressure (vs. chat) –Personal (vs. internet forum)
Why should we be using this technology? / What specific pedagogical aims could this technology target? –Input: no permission required to follow someone; short texts; authentic; update –Output: increasing learners’ output; large audience; repeating the same expressions –Interaction: enhancing interactions between users
Why should we be using this technology? Teachers can use micro-blogging to get in touch with students. –Notice board: teacher can send memos on tasks, exams or events. –Resources: Recommend resources and share links, web pages, videos, etc. –Answers: Teachers can solve students’ doubts or answers very quickly –Feedback: Collect students’ opinions about the class –Motivate: Keep interest high helping students to give a sense and utility to what they have learnt.
Other Micro-blogging Services –Some services use a similar concept as Twitter but combine the micro-blogging facilities with other services, such as file sharing. Other services provide similar functionality, but within closed networks for corporations, nonprofits, universities, and other organizations. –Plurk ( Updates are shown on a timeline where they are chronologically ordered in a very visual way –Jaiku ( Its lifestream that enables users to put together all information about what we are doing on-line with other services (e.g., Flickr) –Edmodo ( It provides a way for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files
Why did you choose this particular version as opposed to other available versions of the technology? Twitter –Simple –Large number of users ( –Many useful applications ( top-20-twitter-applications/) top-20-twitter-applications/
Terminology 1 Tweet –Each of your Twitter posts or updates is known as a tweet. Some people refer to them as “twits”, but the official term is “tweet.” Each tweet is no longer than 140 characters. Following –While Facebook requires that all relationships be reciprocal, Twitter allows for one-way relationships. If you find Twitter users who are interesting, you can "follow them" to subscribe to their tweets. They do not necessarily have to follow you back, though the more social users will want to follow you back Timeline –The “timeline” page is the homepage which displays tweets from all the people you are following. On the sidebar (column on the right of each Twitter page) –Public timeline Direct Messages –Links to your Inbox/Sent messages (140 characters or less) that are privately sent to and from you
How to Start Twitter? 1.Go to: 2.Create account 3.Settings (personal information, background etc) 4.Search 5.Follow 6.reply
Sample Classroom Activities Headline: –The students are given a newspaper article and they have to write a headline for it. Collaborative writing: –All the students have to create a short story or fable, starting from the first post sent by the teacher. Secret person: –The students have to guess the secret person sending questions to the teacher, to which he can answer only yes or no. Meeting point: –A space where all students can discuss an issue decided by the teacher.
Sample Classroom Activities Film scripts –Step1: Each group choose one scene from famous films prepared by a teacher –Step 2: Each group write dialogue of the scene –Step 3: Teacher gave feedback on the dialogues –Step 4: Each group perform the scene in class –Step 5: Voting for the best script creation
- sign is used to call out usernames in Tweets, like this: When a username is preceded by sign, it becomes a link to a Twitter profile. Direct Message - Also called a DM. These messages are private between only the sender and recipient. Tweets become DMs when they begin with "d username" to specify who the message is for. FF - #FF stands for "Follow Friday." Twitter users often suggest who others should follow on Fridays by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. Handle - A user's "Twitter handle" is the username they have selected and the accompanying URL, like so: (ie Twitter.com/StephanieNelson) Hashtag - The # symbol is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Can search by hashtags to see all messages that include that particular hashtag. ie – in the following message, #sofresh is the hashtag used. If you search #sofresh, all tweets that use that hashtag from all users (whether you follow them or not) will show in the results:
Glossary Mention - Mentioning another user in your Tweet by including sign followed directly by their username is called a "mention". Also refers to Tweets in which your username was included. ie – in the @print4color are @print4color Great seeing you yesterday at #sofresh - I really enjoyed our conversations.sarahbradleycltStephanieNelsonprint4color#sofresh Reply - Tweet posted in reply to another user's message, usually posted by clicking the "reply" button next to their Tweet in your timeline. Always begins Retweet – Also known as RT. A Tweet by another user, forwarded to you or by you. Often used to spread news or share valuable findings on Twitter. Tweeps/Tweeple – people/friends on Twitter Via – Like a retweet. Used with to attribute something that you saw with another user. Good when you are not directly quoting word for word, but paraphrasing or passing a link along.
General Twitter Tips & Tricks Twitter is all about INTERACTION. So go ahead and start a conversation! It’s a Give & Take – RT your followers if you like what they post. Then they’ll be more likely to RT you as well. If you want something retweeted, try to stick to 120 characters or less – it makes it easier to retweet. Keep your posts relevant to your audience. Post often, but not just for the sake of posting. Think & proofread before you hit send, especially if tweeting from your phone. (In other words, learn from Stephanie’s mistakes.)
Following Your Followers 2 Schools of Thought It’s a Must: Thought is that you’re showing your followers respect by following them back, that you believe they also have something important to say. It’s Up to You: You should have the right to decide who you follow and why. I’m of the “It’s Up to You” philosophy. Once you start getting a lot of followers, if you follow all of them back, you’ll never get anything else done. And chances are you won’t be interested in what all of your followers are saying. My tactic is: I check my followers about once every week or so. If I see I have new followers, I go into their profiles and look at the last few items they’ve posted. If they look interesting to me, I follow them back; if not, I don’t.
Following Tips Don’t follow more people than you can handle. You’ll get too many tweets and miss the ones that actually interest you. It’s also no crime to unfollow someone, whether it’s because you don’t like what they tweet, they tweet too much for you or for any other reason!
Personal Twitter Tips This is a good way to build your personal brand online. Own it. What would you want people to see you sharing? Along the same lines…If you wouldn’t want your mama to see it, don’t post it. Be careful with linking Foursquare with Twitter and Facebook. Don’t post every check-in to both outlets. One, it ups your chances of gaining a stalker (especially if your profile pic is an actual picture of you). Two, not everyone is going to care about your every move. Some check-ins are ok on both, but uncheck one or the other on most check-ins. Be careful of public messages. People following both participants can see both sides of the conversation. If something’s sensitive, DM the person.