Professional+Learning+Network

Story of an Educator Using Twitter to Build His PLN

How can Twitter help you professionally?
 * The POWER of Twitter depends on who you FOLLOW. The more people/organizations you FOLLOW, the more tweets you receive.
 * In the beginning you can be less discriminating about who you FOLLOW, because you are just getting started. You can always UNFOLLOW someone later if they don't prove to be a valuable resource. The VALUE of your network depends on the tweeting-quality of the people/organizations you FOLLOW. If you are following someone as a professional resource their value lies in the quality of the ideas, resources, and links they tweet and retweet.

How do I find people/organizations to FOLLOW?

SEARCHING! Searching is not a linear process. You just have to dive in and look around. With persistence you will begin discovering plenty of great people to FOLLOW.

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Tips on how to search

1) Below is a list of some well-respected education twitterers. You can look at their tweets and see if they are people that would be valuable for you to FOLLOW. You can also look at who they FOLLOW to identify more people for your network. 2) Search #edchat on Twitter. #edchat is a popular hashtag used by educators and administrators from all around the world. Participators engage in live twitter discussions every Tuesday at noon and 7PM EST. By reading among the tweets on #edchat you can find great educators to FOLLOW.
 * @web20classroom
 * @ShellTerrell
 * @tomwhitby
 * @rliberni

3) Whenever you select someone to FOLLOW, look at who they FOLLOW and RETWEET. You may want to add some of them to your network as well.

4) When looking at people's tweets, look at the hashtags they use. Try following hashtags that seem promising to see where they lead. You may discover more people to FOLLOW or a popular hashtag that you want to start using in your own tweets to join a twitter conversation.

5) Twitter4Teachers - A wiki created to help educators find other educators on Twitter. The Twitter users are organized by topic, such as "Special Education Teachers," "Middle School Teachers," and "Foreign Language Teachers." Some of the links on this wiki are dead. And not all the Twitter users mentioned are particularly valuable. But it pays to search through all the educators in your field to see if there is anyone good to FOLLOW. (And best yet, you can see who they FOLLOW and RETWEET.)

6) Brainstorm some keywords and terms to search with hashtags in front of them. Not every search will lead to something. You will have to vary your keywords/terms. __Example__: A search for #nursing only turns up 3 tweets. But you discover #nurses in one of the tweets. When you follow it you discover it's a popular hashtag.

Do I want my own FOLLOWERS?
 * When people mention being able to send out a question on Twitter and receive multiple replies back within hours or even minutes, they are relying on the replies of their followers.
 * Depending on your specific interests in Twitter you may or may not be interested in cultivating a FOLLOWING.
 * If you are interested in gaining FOLLOWERS you need to be an active PARTICIPANT in the twitterverse.

Tips for gaining FOLLOWERS
 * 1) Include links in your tweets that other educators will find valuable. You can link to articles, blog posts, videos, photographs, class projects, and anything else you think think is interesting and helpful. (If it's interesting to you, other like-minded people will think it's interesting as well.)
 * 2) Link to popular hashtags to make your tweets visible.
 * 3) Craft REPLIES (@username) to tweets that contribute to the overall conversation.
 * 4) RETWEET and mark FAVORITES from among the tweets you receive.
 * 5) It always helps if your tweets are FUN : ) People will like the personal touch.

Twitter Clients
 * Third-party platforms that use the Twitter API to make your Twitter account viewable in another program.
 * Many avid Twitter users did not find the actual Twitter website user-friendly. Twitter has an open API so third-parties have created tons of applications that use Twitter. Twitter is currently rolling out a new interface that is a lot snazzier than its older version. But you may still be interested in reading and tweeting through one of the popular Twitter Clients you can download for free. Below are some well-known applications you can use.

TweetDeck - Very popular. Has language translation capability, can change your tweet into Twitter-language, and has an instant URL shortening button. Twhirl Twitterrific Digsby Exhaustive List of Various Twitter Clients

Twitter Resources - For Teachers The 9 Step Plan to Combatting illTWITTERacy

Eight Reasons an Innovative Educator Uses Twitter

#edchat Wiki Archive- An archive of the #edchats that occur every Tuesday at noon and 7PM Eastern Standard Time.

@http://www.kikerlearning.com/

@http://cybraryman.com/twitter.html

8 Videos for Getting Teachers Started on Twitter

The Twitter Guide Book

__Links to Good Classroom Ideas __

__Twitter Tools __
 * __The 9 Step Plan to Combatting illTWITTERacy__
 * 12 Expert Twitter Tips for the Classroom
 * Twitter for Teachers
 * The Ultimate Twitter Teacher Resource
 * Twrivia- With a class Twitter account solve daily trivia challenges.
 * @http://paper.li/- Newspaper-format for viewing tweets.
 * @http://twitpic.com/- For including images in your tweets.
 * @http://tweetchat.com/- For viewing group tweeting.