Micro-blogging - Twitter

Part 1: Introduction

If you want to keep in constant touch with people, find out what they are up to, as well as tell them what you are doing, or if you need an immediate answer to a problem or issue, then a micro-blogging service might be what you need.

There are a number of micro-blogging services. These let you write brief text updates (of up to 140 characters) and broadcast them. People then sign up to follow your messages and you can sign up to follow others and receive their messages.

Whereas many people can see the value of micro-blogging as a tool to support informal learning, educators and others are still exploring its use. Here are couple of useful articles:

7 things you should know about microblogging, Educause, July 2009

How to use microblogging for education, Pistachio, 7 April 2009

There are a number of micro-blogging services - although the biggest and best known is Twitter.

Part 2 - Micro-blogging with Twitter

Twitter - www.twitter.com - is also currently ranked #1 in our Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009. You can read the comments from the learning professionals who voted for it here: Top 100 Tools for Learning : twitter

Here's a Twitter presentation by Jane Hart - the script appears below

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

What is Twitter?

Twitter lets you write brief text updates (of up to 140 characters) and broadcast them. People then sign up to follow your messages (aka "updates" or "tweets") and you sign up to follow others.

You can receive information, news and much more from colleagues, friends, celebrities, politicians as well as companies and services. You can share your own news, links or even ask a question of your followers. Tweet about a conference or event

Watch this video (from CommonCraft), which explains Twitter in Plain English.

The best way to find out what you think is to experience it yourself.

1 - Sign up for a Twitter account

Go to www.twitter.com and sign up. You will need to choose a unique username. During the sing-up process, Twitter will suggest some people to follow. You can uncheck them if you want to. Your Twitter home page will now be set up.

Your profile page will also be set up (Select Profile). It will have a unique web address, ie. www.twitter.com/yrusername and will show information about you, who you are following and who is following you. It will also display your recent tweets (known as your timeline).

2 - Customise your profile page

Select Settings. Write something about yourself. and ideally, upload a picture, avatar or logo, and customise the look your Twitter page. Note: If you want to, you can protect your profile to keep your tweets private, and approve those who can follow you.

3 - Write your first tweet

Remember it can only be up to 140 characters long. Remember, too, that no one will receive this tweet; because no one is following you, but at least it will put something onto your timeline so it is not empty.

When you are on the website, the input box looks like this - and you can see the characters count down from 140 as you type your message.

4 - Find people to follow

You can establish contacts with people by �following� them and this means you will receive their tweets. Who you follow is completely up to you. Take a look at their profile page and their recent tweets and decide if they are someone you would like to interact with. If you are looking for a good deal of interaction with people, then it might be a good idea to avoid choosing people who have masses of followers, as they are unlikely to have the time to interact with everyone on an individual basis.

If you are looking for a list of learning professionals, on Twitter, then the Connexions Directory is a good place to start:

When people follow you � and by default you will get an email notification when this happens � you shouldn�t feel obliged to follow them back. And as for how many people you should follow, that again is up to you and what you feel you can handle. Some people only like to follow a small number, others can cope with hundreds if not thousands.

NOTE 1: If it gets too "noisy", you can stop following someone by going to their profile page, and clicking the right arrow beside the button that says Following. This will open another box with a Remove button on it. Click that to stop following their updates.

NOTE 2: If you don�t want someone to follow you, e.g. a spammer, than you can easily block that person.

5 - Send someone a tweet

Target a message at a tweeter by inserting @ in front of their Twitter name (e.g. �@c4lpt I agree�). Note all your followers will see this message.

6 - Send a direct message to someone

To send a a contact (which only the named contact will see) by using d in front of their Twitter name), e.g. �d c4lpt how are you?�

7 - Retweet someone else's tweet

If you are reposting the complete tweet, "RT" or "Retweeting" at the beginning. If you are sharing the tweet and but adding your own thoughts, changing it somehow then use "via"

8 - Share a web link

Don't use the full URL (unless it is short), reduce it in size using a service like tinyurl.com or bit.ly which lets you keep track of hits on the URL

9 - Display a Twitter badge

If you have a blog or website, you could place a Twitter badge on it that displays your latest tweets, This is a useful way for people to find out you are on Twitter, and to follow you if they want. Twitter provides a number of different types of badges to embed on your blog or web page. The badge you choose will depend upon if you can use Javascript on your site, or whether only Flash is allowed.

10 - Watch Twitter trends

If you want to see what's the hottest news (i.e. the current most used words), take a look at the trending topics, visible in the right-hand column of your profile page. Click on a trend to see the real-time results for this trend. To search for a topic, go to http://search.twitter.com.

Watch this video from Commoncraft to see how Twitter Search creates new opportunities for business feedback, tracking news in real time and discovering trends.

11 - Use #hashtags

#hashtags are often used to categorise or tag content, i.e. a number of people all agree to use the same word so that their related tweets can be grouped together, e.g. #abcdef. See what's happening on Twitter at hashtags.org

12 - Use a Twitter client

Although most people use their web page to write and receive their tweets, there are a range of other ways to do this. For instance, you could use a Firefox add-on like Twitterfox, or a desktop client like Twhirl.

13 - Twitter on your mobile phone

You can access Twitter on your mobile phone at http://m.twitter.com. You can also use your phone to send and receive tweets via SMS. There are Twitter clients for iPhone and Blackberry

14 - Find other great Twitter 3rd party apps

There are lots of Twitter apps to help you do much more with Twitter, e.g.

Customise your Twitter profile page with a Twitter background, e.g. Twitbacks or Twitter backgrounds

Re-distribute your own blog/website feed, using twitterfeed.com to send your RSS feed to Twitter

Integrate Twitter with your Facebook account: Your tweets will update your Facebook status using a Facebook application

Send a tweet to a group: Using grouptweet.com

Set up a Twitter poll, e.g. using strawpollnow.com or Polldaddy

Keep track of what�s being said about you and/or your company, by using t weetscan.com

Find out about other Twitter applications. There are lots of 3rd party applications that work with Twitter. See some of them here: Twitter applications

15 - How are you going to use Twitter?
How are you going to use Twitter? Here are some suggestions

Think about the types of tweets you might want to write: Rodd Lucier has also posted about Top 10 Types of Tweets, which might give you some food for thought.

Think about your engagement formula: Angela Maiers, for instance, uses the 70-20-10 rule. 70% is sharing resources, 20% is collaborations and 10% is chit-chat.

Make a tweet plan: This is Darren Rowse's plan.

16 - Twitter for Teaching & Learning

Twitter is increasingly being used in the classroom, as well as for both Informal and formal Learning purposes in education and training.

Twitter as a Learning Tool. Really. Pat Galagan, ASTD, March 2009

Enterprise micro-learning, Marcia Connor, 17 June 2009

Try

140University - daily knowledge nuggets plus links to explanatory resources delivered via Twitter or Facebook - in less than 140 characters

140 Learning Centre - daily knowledge and skills nuggets plus links to explanatory resources delivered via Twitter or Yammer - in less than 140 characters - to support and improve your personal productivity and performance in the workplace

17 - Twitter at a Conference

Twitter is often used at conferences and events to provide a backchannel for the event. Find out the hashtag that's being used.

6 Steps for using Twitter for your conference or event, TwiTip, 28 February 2009

18 - Twitter for Self-Marketing & Promotion

Twitter is being used both by individuals and companies for self-promotion as well as to provide customer support.

Personal brand - how to build yours in Twitter - TwiTip, 21 April 2009

19 - Twitter in the Workplace

If you use Twitter in the Workplace, you need to be conscious all the time that this is a public service. Here's a short article.

10 Twitter Tips for the Workplace, PCW Business Center, 12 April 2009

Tw itter in the Workplace: Why employees need to be cautious, not afraid, Daniel Schwatz,

Twitter 101 for Business - A Special Guide, Twitter, 23 July 2009

Jonathan Hewitt (hackademic, 26 June 2009) has a corporate Twitter policy that has the extra added benefit of being itself twitterable: "Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can�t control it once you hit 'update.' " For more about use of socialmedia tools, see Social media guidelines

20 - Find out more about Twitter

Twitter Reading lists:

Twitter Reading List

Microblogging Reading List

Tools Directory Listing: Micro-blogging/Lifestreaming tools