Twitter. 1. Register. Getting Started 7/25/2011

Transcription

1 Twitter Getting Started Sources: This tutorial is comprised of information from multiple sources, including Forrestal (2011), Stenhouse Pubishers (2011), and those listed on the final two slides. 1. Register Register at twitter.com. Tip: You may sign up for several accounts. You may wish to have one account for professional development and one personal account. 1 1

2 2. Build your teacher s lounge 2. a. Arrange for tweets (posts) of others to feed to your page by interest. Example: Type education or teaching reading in the box and press the search button. When you find a person or group of interest, click FOLLOW. 2

3 Look to the right to see a list of who you are following Note: These are the people and groups that will feed to your page. This is your teacher s lounge. You always have the option to add more people as well as subtract people. b. Find people you know by tweet. In the previous example, you searched for people and groups by topic. You can use the same method to search for people by name as well. However, sometimes it is easier to search for people you know by their tweets 3

4 Suppose you would like to follow people who are participating in this cool tools session 1. Participants send out a tweet with the same hashtag. 3 Type in a message for everyone to see. Follow it by pound sign and a file name, i.e., hashtag. Hashtag should be a quirky one one unlikely to already exist. People will be able to search for that hashtag. And when they do, every post with that hashtag will pull up Note: Do leave a space after the message. Do NOT leave a space after the pound sound. Do NOT leave spaces between words of the hashtag. 2a. Type hashtag in search box and press return. Note: The search box is NOT the tweet box. The search box is near the top of the page. 2b. Click View all Tweets. 4

5 3a. Click on username. 3b. Look at right pane and click FOLLOW. 5

6 4. Repeat steps 3a and 3b as necessary. 3a. Click another user name. 3b. Click follow. 3. Start collaborating! 4 1. Click HOME to begin tweeting. 2. Post a message (tweet) to everyone 3. Read and reply to posts of people you are following. Move cursor over tweet to see reply option. 6

7 Keep It Brief Note that a tweet can be no more than 140 characters long. 5 Twitter keeps track for you. Managing Tweets Your feed displays tweets in the order in which they are tweeted. This can be problematic. A reply to a tweet may not immediately follow the tweet itself. This may leave you wondering, What is this tweet in response to? Clicking on the tweet s conversation bubble will answer that question for you. 6 7

8 Help Use the help center (support.twitter.com) to find out how to use the following features to manage tweets: Favorites - Click on the favorites button on a tweet to store it in your favorites box. Pull up your favorite tweets from your profile page. Hashtags - Add hashtags ( file names ) to tweets to make searching for tweets easier. 7 Search - Use the search box at the top of the page to search for hashtags, people, topics, etc. Lists Create lists to easily see the tweets of certain groups of people, e.g., only people on your grade level. Retweet - You can retweet your posts or posts of others with the retweet button on the tweet. Delete You can delete tweets using the delete button on the tweet. Follow and Unfollow You can always add to the list of people to follow. You also have the option of unfollowing tweeters. Mobile - Tweeting on your mobile device can make collaborating even more convenient. There s an app for that! Privacy Twitter (2011) explains that you have the option of protecting your tweets. From the account settings page you can elect to have your tweets public or protected (Twitter, 2011). The default is public (Twitter, 2011). See the following link for additional information on protecting your tweets: NEVERTHELESS, citing the work of Stephens (2010), Forrestal (2011) suggests that tweeters be careful not to divulge confidential information (p. 149). Similarly, I like to think of my tweets as viewable by anyone whether I am using the protected option or public option. That is, personally, I feel safer only posting messages that I am okay with the world seeing 8

9 Sources This tutorial is comprised of information from multiple sources, including the following: Bongco, A. (n.d.). 10 easy steps for Twitter beginners [Web log post]. Retrieved from Demski, J. (2010). Tweets for teachers. T H E Journal, 37, Forrestal, V. (2011). Making Twitter work: A guide for the uninitiated, the skeptical, and the pragmatic. The Reference Librarian, 52, McCarty, B. (2011). How to easily view a Twitter conversation on a single page. Retrieved from Remarkablogger (2008). Twitter basics [Video]. Retrieved from Stenhouse Publishers (2011). Twitter for PD: great ideas from two author-tweeters. Newslinks, June 10, Twitter (2011a). Retrieved from Twitter (2011b). Help Center. Retrieved from Twitup (n.d.). When one Twitter account is not enough. From M. Rafter (Author) Word Count: Freelancing in the Digital Age. Retrieved from End Notes 1. Such a tip is provided by several people, including M. Rafter as presented by Twitup (n.d.). 2. In a podcast for Stenhouse Publishers ( Katie Keier refers to Twitter as a teacher s lounge. 3. Demski (2010) describes using hashtags in the manner described in this section. 4. Forrestal (2011) and Bongco (n.d.) present tweeting as a conversation as is presented here. Also as presented in this tutorial, Bongco suggests that after you have registered and begun following people, to begin conversing with fellow tweeters. In a video by Remarkablogger (2008), he demonstrates, as presented in this tutorial, how to first send a tweet to everyone and then how to read and reply to tweets using the reply button. 5. As presented in this tutorial, Forrestal (2011) explains this character limitation of Twitter in the context of how to send and reply to tweets. 6. McCarty (2011) presents this challenge and a similar remedy. 7. Forresal (2011) and Demski (2010) discuss hashtags in this manner. 9