Twitter. I run a Mother’s Day Out program with ten
staff members, and in a recent survey, none of them used twitter. My husband, on the other hand, is an avid
user. I have been in limbo somewhere; I created
an account in 2009, and there it sat until last week when it was resurrected by
ETEC527.
This
week, I was able to attempt to join the tweeting world. The first triumph was tweeting with the #ETEC527. I was able to quickly move towards retweeting. This involved searching for specific topics
in educational technology, finding articles to retweet, adding a comment, and
adding #ETEC527. I subscribed to the
class list created by our professor, and, in turn, found some co-students to
follow. I learned how to tweet to someone
in regard to their twitter handle; I found a webpage to tweet about and referenced
the creator with his handle.
Initially,
I do not like the Twitter homepage on the computer. It automatically sorts the tweets in top
tweet order instead of latest. In order
to search for information for our class, I have to search for our hashtag and
then sort the page into latest tweets every single time you log in. There had to be something better. Enter TweetDeck. This platform is fabulous. You are able to order your page on the right-hand
side. I created a specific search for #ETEC527
and moved that to my second stream. It automatically
updates in real time, so there is no more required sorting. Que the happy dance!
I
did watch the video about Hootsuite, but in order to create a free 30-day log-in,
you had to provide a credit card, and I did not feel comfortable doing
that. However, if I become a twitter convert,
I might give that platform a chance. A
school media specialist might handle multiple twitter account, and this platform
would make it much easier to navigate through the twitter feeds.
There
is an app called Periscope for phones that allows the user to post a live feed
to Twitter – much like the live feed you can use on Facebook. The user can search previously live recorded videos
by topic or by location. The location
feature shows a map where you can see who has recently filmed live close to you. For teachers, this app could be used to follow
specific authors or presenters that have live weekly feeds. This would allow you to post the live feed on
Twitter for your classes to watch along with you.
To
be honest, I don’t frequent that many websites.
I stay on Facebook and am starting to use some Instagram. I do use Fox News, so I played around on
their website to see how they connected with Twitter. I clicked on the search icon and used one of
their subtopics, Education, to get a list of articles. I then read an article and noticed that there
was a little bird next to it allowing me to retweet it. I retweeted it and added a comment with the
class hashtag; it formed a tinyurl and included Fox News’ own hashtags they had
used when the article was first published.
As
an educator, I know that the more advanced students in high school are using
Twitter to stay up to speed with the latest news. It becomes instant gratification in finding
things out in the sporting or political worlds sometimes before it hits the
mainstream population. This platform
will allow students to bridge that connect to the teacher outside of the
classroom in a neutral space. For
instance, if they have a question on a topic, want clarification, or decided to
do their own additional research, they could use the teacher’s twitter handle
and send the link even if they don’t have a class hashtag. This is just one more way to give students
another medium to connect in what they view as the most modern technology.
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