Twitter basics & academic applications

Tyson Seburn - International Foundation Program, @seburntJeff Newman – New College D.G. Ivey Library, @iveylibrary

Basic Twitter vocabulary

Homepage: your base for reading Twitter feed (i.e. other people’s tweets)

Tweet: the status update (i.e. what everyone writes on Twitter)

Feed: the column where you see yours and your follower’s tweets

Follow: act of selecting people whose tweets you wish to view

Mentions: tweets that mention your @twittername specifically

Hashtag: #words to categorise tweets for easy searching

Trends: currently popular categories on Twitter

New to Twitter Go to twitter.com Sign up with any

username and email. Search and follow

these initial accounts:@seburnt@iveylibrary@UofTNews@blogTO@CBCToronto

Twitter old-timer Log in and look for the

examples of twitter vocabulary and organisation mentioned. (e.g. Tweet, follow, mentions, hashtag, homepage, feed, trends, etc.)

Follow these accounts:@seburnt@iveylibrary@UofTNews@blogTO@CBCToronto

Now let’s set you up...

Let’s try a couple things.1. Compose a tweet.

2. Compose an @ mention to @seburnt. (e.g. @seburnt Hello there!)

3. Say something about this workshop with the hashtag #newmedia

Where does it go?Can you see others’ tweets?

Where does it go?Can you see anyone else’s @ mention to me?

Where does it go?Can you see anyone else’s?How can you find them?

A couple other features...

@Connect: You can see @ mentions and new followers in one place.

#Discover: See tweets Twitter think are good for you, your followers’ mian activities, new accounts to follow, etc.

Direct messages: Send & receive msgs only you and that person can see

Me: Your profile page = a collection of your photo, description & tweets.

Some useful points...• If you don’t follow anyone, there’s no point.• If no one follows you, there’s no point.• Follow people and try interacting. Then they often follow you.• Search for key words or people to follow (e.g. University of Toronto).•Use “tweet” buttons on websites, blogs, journals, etc. http://bit.ly/X3B6xV• Retweet (RT) your followers’ good tweets (using the link below any tweet). They will do the same for you.• There is an etiquette. http://bit.ly/X3ApEU

Twitter in the classroom

University of Texas@Dallas

Dr. Monica Rankin

History Class 90 Students

Video and responses

Operational points Twitter feed displayed live in class Used a new hash tag every week to help

students search for specific content#week1#week2#week3, etc.

Rankin’s “best practices” Break into small groups and tweet

best ideas – then allow students to respond.

TA responded to tweets in real time.

Students could also submit “tweets” by hand to the TA who would post them.

Used the “favourites” feature to indicate material which might appear on the exam.

Rankin’s Limitations

140 characters limits detail Replies to tweets appear in the

normal stream, not attached to the initial tweet. Ranking found this disorienting

Person driving the learning process

Professor

Person driving the learning process

Professor

University of Wisconsin https://

twitter.com/profefurness

What do students think?[Tara] Johnson says tweeting in Spanish has also helped her

grasp and retain the Spanish language because she and other

students often receive almost instant feedback on their tweets

from Furness.

"I love tweeting in Spanish!" she says. "It really helps build my

Spanish vocabulary and allows me to practice grammar. And if I

happen to tweet a verb in the wrong form, Professor Furness will

tweet back within like 10 minutes correcting me.”

http://r.umn.edu/about-umr/news/UMR_CONTENT_373255.html

Mon. 9-11 Wed. 9-11 Fri. 9-11Thu. 9-11

lab

Mon. 9-11 Wed. 9-11 Fri. 9-11

Twitter writing assignments

https://sites.google.com/site/profhackerimg/Twitter-Matrix.jpg

Tools for tweeting

Tweetchat

Tweetkeeper

Hootsuite

Best practices Make it active and

relevant to course content and assignments

Define clear expectations

Model responsible Twitter use

Build Twitter into assessment

Stay active, too.

Dunlap, J.C. & Lowenthal, P.R. (2009). Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence. Journal of Information Systems Education. Retrieved November 19, 2009

Like most, if not all Web 2.0

tools, Twitter is not

appropriate

for all instructional situations.

For instance, Grosseck and

Holotescu (2008) identify a

number of problems with using

Twitter for educational

purposes