Day 3: Connected Educator Month - Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging service, accessed from your computer or mobile phone, that connects you to a worldwide network of people. Think of Twitter like a very short blog—Twitter’s “tweets” are microposts of a maximum of 140 characters. Like blogs, the tweets may contain videos and photos, but these are shown as links in order to stay within the character limits.

Just as there are readers and subscribers for blogs, you have “followers” on Twitter. Your followers see your messages (called tweets or updates) as you tweet them, along with the chronological tweets from all those they follow.

To find out more about Twitter and how you can use it, watch this short video. Then complete the activities below to get started with Twitter.

• Visit Twitter and create an account.
• Visit Sue’s site that shares tips and tricks to consider when creating your Twitter account.
• Create a few tweets.
• To get started, follow a well-known connected educator like @snbeach or a connected organization like @edconnectr, @ascd, @plpnetwork, or @cueinc. View their lists of followers as well as who they are follow- ing, and then follow some users that are interesting to you. Want more people to follow? Check out this collaborative list of connected educators to follow on Twitter. If you have suggestions of who to follow, add them to the document!
• Once you’ve followed a few educators, retweet someone’s tweet. Look for the retweet link when you place your mouse over an individual tweet.
• Find great classrooms to follow at the Great Twitter Classroom Connections page.
• Make sure you update your profiles around the Web with your Twitter name so others can follow you.
• Watch the video below from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach about why being a connected educator is important.

This blog post was copied from the Connected Educator Starter Kit
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