Group items tagged

"Despite the fact that I know many teachers who would rank Twitter as the most valuable and powerful networking tool they have access to, there are still many more who simply don't "get" the value of Twitter. I've been to lots of conferences over the last few years where the enormous value of belonging to a Personal Learning Network was being touted, and Twitter is nearly always being suggested as the ideal tool for building that network. At one recent conference I asked for a show of hands for who was not yet on Twitter, and many hands went up... my response was "Why not? What are you waiting for? How many times do you need to hear people say that Twitter is the most valuable tool they have, before you actually try it for yourself?""

"How is Twitter interesting for a teacher or educational personnel in general? How to use Twitter for teaching? Why Teachers need Twitter? These are some of the questions that you will be able to answer after viewing the following 18 YouTube videos on How Educators can use Twitter in Classroom! "

"Twitter, without a doubt, has become the social network for educators to take their professional development into their own hands. Twitter allows teachers to connect with other educators from around the world, join discussions related to their interests and have a steady stream of resources (to help them teach and learn) available to them whenever, whereever and however. Creating a network on Twitter has catapulted educators to be part of a connected world where learning happens anytime, help is only a tweet away, collaboration partners meet and communicate, conversations that directly or indirectly impact their physical lives take place 24/7. Twitter is helping educators gain many 21st century skills and literacies which could easily transfer to their classrooms."

"Twitter reveals that the product - which will be rolled out to a select few this week - will incorporate the following features: See how Twitter content is being shared around the web Track the amount of traffic from Twitter to a company's website - including clicks per tweets Measure the effectiveness of 'official' Twitter buttons An API allowing third party analytics tools to incorporate this data"

"We will dive into the Twitterverse and ultimately the use and social implications of the Twitter phenomenon, the hashtag, represented by the "#" sign which is used in Twitter to classify messages, propagate ideas and also to promote specific topics and people. Although the initial intention of this artifact is still intact, the ongoing reception and consumption of the hashtag by Twitter consumers differs from the original intention of its creator, Chris Messina, making it a forever evolving artifact. "

"Educators like to tweet! Out of the 1/2 billion tweets that post every day, 4.2 million are related to education, according to Brett Baker, an account executive at Twitter.com. To put this in perspective, while you read this past sentence, over 3,000 edu-related tweets have flown across the Twitterverse."

"A CYBER safety expert has slammed primary schools for letting students as young as eight use Twitter. Roxburgh Homestead Primary School is one of a number of schools to set up classroom Twitter accounts so students can share snippets of their work with the outside world. Parents have been encouraged to 'follow' the accounts for an insight into their children's school life."

Article showing both sides of the argument for letting younger students use social media (including Twitter) for learning.

An excellent blog post about why educators should be using Twitter. Links to a useful hashtag resource

An example of the power of Twitter for a Primary School to connect and communicate with the world.

"The potential for danger increases when Twitter squatters go to great lengths - often through the use (and abuse) of legitimate images or biographical material - to look and sound like the real thing. The good news for most average Joes is that Twitter squatters are more likely to have big corporations and celebrities in their crosshairs."

"More and more, social media is becoming a part of our daily lives. Just today, Mashable is out with a report that says Pintrest (which is less than a year old) is the #3 social network in the U.S. This report mentions that the amount of monthly traffic Facebook receives is seven billion page views, and Twitter receives 182. Again, these are just U.S. statistics. If we were to look at the numbers worldwide, I would guess they would be much, much higher. But it isn't just adults who are moving more of their lives to online spaces. In a recent Pew Internet survey, 73 percent of all teens used social networks daily. The most popular of these is Facebook; however, Twitter, Myspace and even LinkedIn are not far behind. And it isn't just teens. The #1 social network for kids under the age of 13 is Club Penguin. It is visited more times each day than the New York Times. "

Here's one for all you twitterbugs. Unfortunately, as I understand it, secondary students are not really users of Twitter.

Useful tips for those that are new to Twitter

"It took four years to hit 21 billion tweets. Now Twitter users generate nearly half a billion a day, and the Library of Congress will be archiving and indexing all of them."

Elana Leoni Director of Social Media Strategy and Marketing @Edutopia, edcamp organizer Author's Note: Thanks to Joe Manko, Liberty Elementary School principal, for inspiring this blog post during an impromptu edcamp at #SXSWEdu this year. For an example of a school trying to create a connected culture through Twitter, follow Liberty Elementary's hashtag and jump into the conversation.

"In a recent post I described how Social Media is About Nodes and Connections and explained "the importance [of] the network effect, with a growth in the number of nodes (the bloggers, the contributors, the Twitter users) leading to a growth in the number of connections (the posts, the comments, the tweets, the retweets) which help in the development of new insights and new ideas". But whilst many users of social media, including those working in higher education, are making use of such network effects to support their professional activities in legitimate and ethical ways others are seeking to exploit network effects in ways which may be considered unethical."

"Last November, a young man was ordered by a NSW court to pay A$105,000 in damages for defaming a teacher at his former school on Twitter. The decision, which only came to light earlier this week, should serve as a reminder to all users of the legal risks involved in using social media."