Twitter

Why Should You Use Twitter?

 * Twitter will allow you to share links and connect with other professionals in moments.
 * You will experience conversations with professionals from all over the world right from your computer.
 * If you give Twitter a fair chance, I bet you will get 20 great teaching ideas or links before the new year.
 * You might even think of how you can have your students use Twitter!

Getting Started:
Let’s Make an Account!
 * 1) First let’s take a look at my twitter home page so you can see what Twitter looks like to me.
 * 2) Let’s get you signed up.
 * 3) Next, you need to find people to follow. I find people three ways:
 * After I am following one active person, I look at who they follow. If those people are active, I follow them.
 * I will do a twitter search for #edchat. This brings up a large list of people all tweeting about #edchat. These people are usually progressives in our field with regards to technology integration.
 * 1) There are some basic terms you need to know.
 * Tweet: That means to send out something into Twitterverse, like a link for example. You would say, “Yay, I sent my first tweet!”
 * ReTweet (aka as RT): This means to send someone else’s tweet out to your followers. This is where information can be shared around the planet in seconds. I’ll show you what it means to RT.
 * Direct Message (aka as D): This means to send a private message to someone. No one else can see it.
 * Hashtag (aka as #): Certain groups have established a word followed by a hashtag to “tag” all the comments with the word and the hashtag. For example, “#edchat” is an incredibly popular tag for teachers. So is “midleved” for Middle School teachers.
 * Here are more terms if you ever have vocabulary questions.
 * 1) BEFORE you go out Tweeting, I should tell you about Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck will make your twitter experience much more enjoyable.