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Grammar Grater - short, lively podcasts on vocab and usage in the Information Age

There is increasing discussion about whether Twitter's "real time search" could pose a threat to Google. While Twitter may or may not pose a threat to Google, it is clear that real-time search such as leveraging Twitter is becoming increasingly important. Mark Carye at MTHacks decided to get realtime twitter search results on Google so he created a Greasemonkey user script that does exactly this. It displays the most recent 5 tweets for the query that you are search for, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page. This entry also has some interesting links to the Google/Twitter search debate as well as other ideas related to searching via Twitter.

Foller.me is a Twitter service that can provide you with the most detailed information about a specific Twitter user in the least amount of time! Here's how it works. You input a Twitter name into the searchbox and hit enter. Foller.me gets access to the profile of that user via the Twitter API, scans all the public info and the latest 200 tweets! In general, you'd read those 200 messages to get to know what that specific user is all about, right? Well you don't have to! Foller.me has done that for you already, and provides you only with the most significant parts of those 200 tweets. It builds up three tag clouds: topics, #hashtags and @mentions, all based on the user's recent activity, AND excluding all stop words! Isn't that great?

Welcome to Twitter! There's a lot of confusing terms. What does the abbreviation Twitter RT mean? How do you reply to someone on Twitter? What are the definitions of all this slang stuff? Here's the answers to your Twitter questions.

Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.

Keeping up with interesting news and people you care about is one dimension of Twitter, but what if you need to find out what's happening in the world beyond your personal timeline? There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.

Have you experienced Twitspeak overload? Do you break out into a sweat as the Twit character count goes into the final countdown phase? Then Twitlonger may be just the place for you At Twitlonger you can post to Twitter and not worry about the 140 characters limit. With Twitlonger, you can write what you need and once the 140 character limit is reached the tweet will have a link automatically added to it that will take you to Twitlonger where you can read it all. As the good folk at Twitlonger say, "It's like twitpic for text." Unfortunately to access the full 140+characters you'll have to leave your Twitter client and access the web.

Twitlonger is a way to let you post to Twitter when 140 characters just isn't enough. With Twitlonger, you can write what you need and a link to what you said will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. It's like twitpic for text. Doesn't this go against the whole point of Twitter? Absolutely. Please don't use Twitlonger to get lazy with Twitter. If your tweet runs to 150 characters, you can almost certainly reword it to get it to fit. If, however, you want to make a point that fits in the conversation, or want to explain something technical, then this lets you stay within the Twitterverse without posting a dozen tweets. People that are interested can click on the link and see the full majesty of your wit and wisdom.

"Get your hashtags ready: Twitter is a far more effective source of CPD than more traditional approaches, research has found. Indeed, teachers believe they derive more from the 140 characters of a tweet than they do from several hours of seminars or lectures. Academics from two US universities surveyed 755 members of school staff about Twitter. They found that the most popular use of the social media website was for CPD, with many praising Twitter's advantages over more traditional methods. Twitter, many teachers told researchers, allowed them to create a virtual staffroom, filled entirely with their own choice of colleagues. Indeed, a middle school English teacher explained: "I have learned so much from other teachers. It has transformed my teaching. And this is my 18th year [in the profession].""

This page has 7 great graphics related to Twitter use and Twitter users. Great for anyone interested in the Twitter phenomenon.

While Twitter is a great online social network, there is a lot of room for improvement in its search interface. If you want to find an old Tweet or entry, then you have to go through many search pages before you find what you are looking for. Twitter search is made much more convenient by SnapBird, an absolutely free Twitter client that lets you easily search the Twitter stream.

Ever noticed that folk using Twitter seem to fit into patterns according to what they share? Have you found that over time you begin to review your incoming twitter stream according to some sort of inbuilt filter that you devise according to this pattern? The Innovation Diaries has pondered on this and the needs that folk bring to their Tweeps. Relating this to the work of Abraham Maslow the diaries have come up with a Hierarchy of Tweets. Not only informative but quite amusing it is interesting to try to place ones self in the hierarchy and even more so your twitter friends :).

"In order to convince teachers of the possible benefits of using a new technology, such as Twitter, we decided to look for evidence of its qualities. What in particular, does Twitter offer educators? Is it worth getting involved?" 30 leading educators (with an interest in educational technology) were identified. They were the ones who were currently using Twitter. The study analysed samples of their tweets in order to determine their purpose and the possible benefits of the tweets to their followers. Also examined were a sample of tweets from the twitter streams of two popular educational hashtags: #edchat and #edtech, in order to determine what 'followers' may gain."

This wiki was created to easily help educators find other educators on Twitter that have the same interests as them (that teach in the same content area). Check out the list of educators on the pages linked below and add your Twitter name to the appropriate list too.

From Aaron Lee comes a great article on being more efficient in using Twitter to locate information. It is based around the use of the Firefox Twitter plugin though this is not mandatory.

"2010 will be forever commemorated as the year Twitter matured from a cool but undecided teenager into a more confident and assertive young adult. While there's still much room to mature and develop, Twitter's new direction is crystallizing. With a new look, Dick Costolo as the new CEO, and an oversold new advertising platform, Twitter is growing into something not yet fully identifiable, but formidable nonetheless."

Twitter is a great place for educators to share ideas. It has become my go to place when I am looking for something to read, a new idea or some inspiration. It is a great avenue for sharing practice, asking questions and building a community.    But . . .   . . . Twitter has some problems and these seems to be growing. To get the most out of Twitter a degree of caution is advised.

"a quick overview of good ways for you to make use of Twitter at a medical conference. The growing field of palliative medicine has had a strong social media presence and the addition of more people into our online network helps get important information to people far beyond the patients and families we see each day in our work."

"Twitter allows us to make connections with real people from different walks of life, but it is also a haven for spammers and fake accounts. There is now an app called Status People that scans your Twitter followers and flag fake accounts for you"

Sue Waters (Feb 2012) post: With Twitter recent redesign of its mobile apps and web interface I've decided it's time to update my Twitteraholic's Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter post.  

"Listorious makes it easy to find who matters on any topic with the best Twitter people search on the web." This is a site where you can find who or which list is hot in education in Twitter at the moment.

Today's Meet is an alternative chat room like space where you can quickly setup and invite others to join to collaborate, make comments and suggestions and reflect on meetings presentations etc. As the Today's Meet folks say: Using Twitter at social media conferences has become a great way to do just that. But Twitter isn't appropriate for every situation. * Your audience isn't on Twitter. * You don't want the discussion to be public. * You need to see only relevant updates"