Journal #2 All About Twitter

JOIN THE FLOCK

Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), 12-15. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20100607?pg=14&pm=2&fs=1#pg14

Summary: 

Twitter can be a tool to learn from other people, what you would like to know! This can require some work, however. You would need to develop a professional learning network (PLN), so that you can gain access to greater information. Developing a PLN on Twitter is a commitment, and this commitment is carried out in the following steps:

1.   Set up your account: Add a photo (real or Avatar). Add a bio!

2. Learn to follow: Following someone makes them feel good, so they will be more likely to check out your page to see if they would like to follow you as well.
3. Tap into great lists: Follow people who know great people, and follow those people!
4. Watch and listen: Feel free to sit back and learn from other peoples’ tweets! You don’t have to always be tweeting.
5. Give generously: The more you contribute, the more likely people will be to share their time and knowledge for you.
6. Expose yourself: If you come across good educational/helpful resources and tools, tweet them.
7. Tag your tweet: Use a hashtag (#) to gear it towards a specific stream of educators.

Using Twitter to develop my PLN seems like a great idea to obtain fast, current information on the things I'm looking for as an educator!

Question: What kind of commitment can you make as a Tweeter, in order to build your PLN?

Each tweet can contain a maximum of 140 characters; that means that it is not going to take much time to share a resource, and it does not require much detail, thus does not require much time at all. Committing to Twitter at least once a day, even if it is for a short while, should not be too great of an obligation, because I am personally on the computer almost everyday anyway.

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ENHANCE YOUR TWITTER EXPERIENCE

McClintock, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), 14-17. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20100607?pg=16&pm=2&fs=1#pg16

Summary:

This article provides very useful tools for the beginning Tweeter, including the Twitter Organizer. The Twitter Organizer organizes various Twitter streams into columns (Friends, Direct Mentions, etc.). There is also a big list of "twitter twerminology", which define often-used Twitter jargon. For instance, "twaffic" means "traffic on twitter". The author also mentions a resource called Hootlet, which easily allows the Tweeter to tweet to any account linked to the Hootlet account (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). I think that the most interesting thing about this article, is that it provides strategies for tweeting. Indeed, Twitter is a social networking site, and the things you see and experience are heavily dependent on who you know. Thus, following the strategy may be useful in connecting better with those you would like to be associated with!

Question: How could you use Twitter in my 3rd grade classroom?

I can use Twitter to send my students educational games and online activities, to remind them of homework, to make immediate big announcements, and other classroom related news. I can also teach the students Social Networking Ettiquette, using Twitter as a networking source. Not only will my students be able to learn more about the subject matters; but they will also be able to learn to be civil over the internet.