Journal # 5 : Twitter for Learning, 55 Great Articles (Nets-5)

Hopkins, D. (2009, May 9). Twitter tips: for teachers & educators [Electronic mailing list message]. Retrieved from http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/twitter/twitter-tips-for-teachers-educators-2/

This article gave many helpful tips that will help anyone that plans on using twitter. You first need to work out what you want to get out of twitter. Without a purpose twitter will be confusing and useless. You also need to find and follow people that have the same interests. That is one of the reasons it’s important to put relevant and interesting information on your profile so that you find like minded people. When you pass on information it’s important to re-tweet so that you give credit to the originator. It will also be helpful to use a URL shortening service so that you don’t use too many of your 140 available characters. A good way to find good contacts is by looking at the people that follow someone you are already following. Also don’t be afraid to block people you feel won’t be helpful to your purpose on twitter. Another helpful tool twitter offers is Hashtags, they are great for getting people together for a specific topic. If you use twitter to tweet about yourself and you don’t send valuable information to your followers you will quickly lose your network of people. Twitter has the capabilities to enhance your classrooms experience and add value to the contents of your teaching. Twitter allows you to follow people throughout the world which will help you get different ideas and techniques in teaching.
Q 1. What was the most useful tip from this article?
A. I think the most useful tip was to establish a purpose for using twitter. You need to know what you want to get out of it in order for it to have a purpose. I think it might be a good idea to create separate accounts for your professional and social life.
Q 2. How do you think you can use twitter to benefit your classroom?
A. I think I will use twitter to follow other educators so that I can get useful information I can incorporate in my lesson plans and assignments. By following other teachers the tips they offer can be instrumental in becoming a more effective teacher. I think I can also use it with my students by creating a Hashtag so that we can all communicate through twitter.