By Kris Walsh
Happy
Connected Educators Month!
October is
connected educator month. To celebrate, we thought that our topics this month
would share information about becoming more connected with other professionals
and people that share passions that you do. Today’s Techy
Tuesday is an intro to Twitter. Why Tweet?
This is a question that I often hear when talking to people about Twitter. Many people are a part of Facebook or other social networks and wonder why they should follow something else. I love my Facebook and check and post to it on a daily basis, but I find that for most people, Facebook serves a more personal purpose than their Twitter accounts do. If you were to look at my Facebook page (feel free to friend me J ), you will find pics of my girls, funny stories about my girls, and posts about TV shows and video games that I like. I occasionally post stories about happenings that I am a part of at school. I also share professional articles that I hear about online, but you are more likely to see me share a comic or ecard.
On the other
hand, my Twitter account (@mrkriswalsh- follow me J) is more professional. I follow people
and topics that are of a personal interest to me, but the vast majority of my
tweets are professional in nature. I use my account to follow other educators
and tech professionals across the state, participate in professional Twitter
chats, and get updates about news both in and out of the education field.
Twitter is a great place to network with people who you may not know on a personal level and get their thoughts about specific topics that interest you.
First-
Create an account
Twitter is a
social network, much like Facebook. You simply go to Twitter.com and sign up
for a free account. You can choose a username or “handle” and a password. You
can (and should) write a short blurb about yourself for your profile and select
a picture that you want to be your face on Twitter.
Second-
Follow some users
This is the
most important aspect of Twitter. Your Twitter feed is only as good as YOU make
it. The more selective you are about who you follow, the better information you
will receive. If you follow someone that you find is not meeting your needs on
Twitter, simply unfollow them. If they have a large following, they will likely
not realize that you have stopped following them.
Simply use
the search bar to search for people that you know who use Twitter. You can type
a name with no symbols (Kris Walsh) and it will list people who match or
closely match that name. When looking for users and you know their username
make sure to use the @ symbol first so Twitter knows that you are looking for a
specific user. (@mrkriswalsh)
There are
several of us “Twitheads” here at school, or you can search out professionals
that you have interacted with at trainings or in classes that you have taken. You can also follow news sites such as CNN,
organizations like the DOE, sports teams, celebrities or other personal
interests. When you find someone, simply click the follow button and you will
start seeing their tweets. Unlike Facebook, typically you don’t have to be
accepted by the person that you want to follow. You can set your account up to
be private, but it is not the norm on Twitter.
Other ways
to find users-
On the left
side of the page, Twitter will list suggestions for people to follow based on
the people that you currently follow. Simply click the follow button.
My favorite
way to find users to follow is to “stalk” the following lists of other people
with similar interests (It’s a common practice, anyone who says they don’t do
this is lying). If you click on someone’s name and then click on following, you
can see who they follow. If any users interest you, you can follow them too.
This is all
that you need to do to get your Twitter account up and running. There are some
more advanced ideas and tools available through Twitter that I will share at a
later time.Let any of the eLearning coaches know if you have questions about how to use Twitter. We would be glad to meet with you on an individual basis or in a small group to help you get an account up and running.
These are
the basics that you need to know to get an account up and running. You can look
forward to a sequel that will include information about hashtags, retweeting,
mentioning, Twitter chats, and other Twitter jargon. Please let me know in the
comments if you have any specific questions that you have that I may address in
part 2 of Twithead.
Happy
Tweeting!!
@mrkriswalsh,
@Jamieguillaume1, @zellersp
This is not
an all inclusive list, but a good place to start. Teachthought itself seems
like a good organization to follow or like on Facebook.
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