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

"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."

Texting and Tweeting good for literacy? Follow the professor with the research...

A bit like those PowerPoint effects which make you ponder why they are included, the Visible Tweets visualisations are a bit lost on me however some others enjoy the eye candy of seeing tweets performing gyrations on their screen. An interesting concept nonetheless :).

Visible Tweets is a visualisation of Twitter messages designed for display in public spaces. We used this at the ACCE2010 conference in Melbourne with some great posts by the delegates.

Twitter has become so much more than the "I'm hungry" kind of service. It contains 140's of what we are. This content is hidden somewhere behind the small avatar and last tweets in a user's timeline. We are here to make it visible.  We take a bag of tweets, analyze them, and create a profile page which show-casts the person behind them. Currently we focus on behavior patterns, Famous words, Top Followers, Links, Replies, Songs, Pictures and Check-ins. 

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.  

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?

Splitweet allows the Twitter users to compose a list of accounts and distribute their tweets, choosing their release in one or more of their accounts. You can also follow your contacts tweets from all of your managed accounts in Splitweet.

See where in the world your tweets are coming from

A quirky fun site that could just as easily be used by history teachers everywhere. Most people think Twitter was "created" in 2006. These are same people who think Richard Gere created Buddhism in the 1990's. Just before Madonna created yoga. Folks, like the sun, moon, and stars, Twitter has always been. This site proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Books have been ruining history. So many unnecessary words. Now, with Historical Tweets, history's most amazing men and women can be fully understood, a mere 140 characters at a time.

This teacher's kids want to use pop music they love for a project.  Their teacher wants them to do so legally and with respect, so he's trying to contact the artist directly.  To get her attention (the artist is Taylor Swift), he's asking all his Twitter PLN to re-tweet his open letter to Taylor Swift to her Twitter account, so her mentions column will be filled with the RT of his letter.  If you Tweet, please copy and paste this into Twitter:RT @thenerdyteacher An Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - http://bit.ly/gV6uaH

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.

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 :).

"During June 2012 I attended an #eSmart training course. Whilst this aggregates collects some of the posts that I made, I have also added some of the tweets by friends at the #NCAB12 conference that was running at the same time."

"Finland is planning to phase out handwriting classes in favour of keyboard skills, a recognition that this generation will never write a letter, birthday card or love letter. Instead, they'll text, tap and tweet."

"Finland is planning to phase out handwriting classes in favour of keyboard skills, a recognition that this generation will never write a letter, birthday card or love letter. Instead, they'll text, tap and tweet."

"Here what Twitter said about it : " The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Hashtags are a great way to build community around content." Post with ideas about how teachers can make the most out of hashtags

"Another Teachmeet has come and gone.  The tweets from the day tell the story so well.  Thanks to all concerned for a great start to 2013. Every Teachmeet I have attended has been different. Different because of the venues, the presentations, the time of the day, the day of the week, the people who attend. This is one of the reasons I like them. Teachers sharing passion, interest, skills, questions and ideas."

The Next Web has developed this quick and handy guide to Twitter's most stalwart phrases. From the basic beginner to a tweet-savvy expert, this cheat sheet will help you navigate the perplexing and concentrated language that often appears in the stream, and