Twitter: Best Practices for Educators
The link above will take you to an article that explains different ways Twitter can be used in the classroom. Dr. Spring actually tweeted this article early this week, and I though it fit right in with my interests as a teacher. It has been a personal goal of mine to incorporate more "social media" into my classroom. I am a social media fiend with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine. However, I am not a pro at Twitter, which is somewhat disappointing. I pride myself on being on the "up-and-up" with new teenage fads, etc. since this is key to building meaningful relationships with my high schoolers. I was happy that Dr. Spring decided to incorporate Twitter into this class because it forced me to reacquaint myself with Twitter. I created a profile back in college, but never really explored the site. I think I'm now making headway which is awesome!
The author of this article, Vicki Davis, is also the author if a new book, Reinventing Writing. While I have not thoroughly checked this book out, it looks to be something I could possibly use for my profession. In the article, Ms. Davis goes through a variety of helpful apps, tools, and hashtags to get a Twitter account for the classroom up and running. Below are my thoughts on some of the tools Ms. Davis mentioned.
Hootsuite: This is a social media management website that lets a user easily see what is going on with favorite hashtags and followers. This would be ideal for a teacher who is teaching a large class and needs to keep up with a large amount of students. I haven't signed up for this yet, but I like the fact that is micromanages your class Twitter page, and it's FREE!
Canva a.ka. InDesign for dummies: This is a online service/app that allows a user to add graphic designs to photos, webpages, fliers, etc. It is free from what I can tell, and seems to be idiot proof. (Meaning, I can use it since I know ZIP about graphic design.) Davis suggests this to be used in conjunction with photographs. She explains that studies have shown that tweets with photos are ten times more likely to be retweeted than just plain text.
Various statistics and tips: Davis ends her article with tips and tricks on how to successfully tweet to a broader audience. She advises teachers to use less words in their tweets and more interactive media such as links, photos, and videos. She also gives a FANTASTIC tip about mentioning to celebrities that you are a teacher or are teaching a class pertaining to their work. Apparently, famous people are more likely to respond to teachers than random peons in the Twitterverse. Can we say, "Tom Hiddleston," anyone? Finally, Ms. Davis gives three handy hashtags for the classroom: #mysteryskype, #comments4kids, and a hashtag of your creation. Dr. Spring has already done this with our class, and I am excited to create one for my own! #mysteryskype helps teachers find other classroom teachers via Twitter, and #comments4kids is apparent Twitter code for "Hey, I teach cool kids, so you should check out our stuff and we'll check out yours!" What are some other handy hashtags that you know that can be used for teaching? Or English? Or writing? Or all of the above?
The link above will take you to an article that explains different ways Twitter can be used in the classroom. Dr. Spring actually tweeted this article early this week, and I though it fit right in with my interests as a teacher. It has been a personal goal of mine to incorporate more "social media" into my classroom. I am a social media fiend with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine. However, I am not a pro at Twitter, which is somewhat disappointing. I pride myself on being on the "up-and-up" with new teenage fads, etc. since this is key to building meaningful relationships with my high schoolers. I was happy that Dr. Spring decided to incorporate Twitter into this class because it forced me to reacquaint myself with Twitter. I created a profile back in college, but never really explored the site. I think I'm now making headway which is awesome!
The author of this article, Vicki Davis, is also the author if a new book, Reinventing Writing. While I have not thoroughly checked this book out, it looks to be something I could possibly use for my profession. In the article, Ms. Davis goes through a variety of helpful apps, tools, and hashtags to get a Twitter account for the classroom up and running. Below are my thoughts on some of the tools Ms. Davis mentioned.
Hootsuite: This is a social media management website that lets a user easily see what is going on with favorite hashtags and followers. This would be ideal for a teacher who is teaching a large class and needs to keep up with a large amount of students. I haven't signed up for this yet, but I like the fact that is micromanages your class Twitter page, and it's FREE!
Canva a.ka. InDesign for dummies: This is a online service/app that allows a user to add graphic designs to photos, webpages, fliers, etc. It is free from what I can tell, and seems to be idiot proof. (Meaning, I can use it since I know ZIP about graphic design.) Davis suggests this to be used in conjunction with photographs. She explains that studies have shown that tweets with photos are ten times more likely to be retweeted than just plain text.
Various statistics and tips: Davis ends her article with tips and tricks on how to successfully tweet to a broader audience. She advises teachers to use less words in their tweets and more interactive media such as links, photos, and videos. She also gives a FANTASTIC tip about mentioning to celebrities that you are a teacher or are teaching a class pertaining to their work. Apparently, famous people are more likely to respond to teachers than random peons in the Twitterverse. Can we say, "Tom Hiddleston," anyone? Finally, Ms. Davis gives three handy hashtags for the classroom: #mysteryskype, #comments4kids, and a hashtag of your creation. Dr. Spring has already done this with our class, and I am excited to create one for my own! #mysteryskype helps teachers find other classroom teachers via Twitter, and #comments4kids is apparent Twitter code for "Hey, I teach cool kids, so you should check out our stuff and we'll check out yours!" What are some other handy hashtags that you know that can be used for teaching? Or English? Or writing? Or all of the above?
I have actually had some success with contacting authors of books, although not through Twitter. However, I've found that their follow-up on their promises is not that great so far. One of them, though, was willing to Skype with my students, which was cool, and she did follow-through. Twitter is a neat idea to further these types of connections.
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