TwitterWhat, Why, Who & How

Ian Quartermaine Head of Learning Technologies – JPCTwitter : point2five

What?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers

The Company

Started in March 2006 as a side project

Predicted around 18 million users by the end of 2009

Valued at approx. 1 Billion (Sept 09) Twitter remains just a fraction of the

size of Facebook at 250 million active users, 120 million of whom claim they login at least once daily.

A quick tour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Why?

What are you doing?It’s more than “I had cornflakes for

breakfast”

Only follow those people who are interesting!!

Why?

Follow – friends Follow – celebrities and leaders of various kinds

Follow – experts and enthusiasts on all topics Tweetup- is an event where people who Twitter

come together to meet in person Search trending topics

Breaking news Eg. #earthquakes – “Real time web” (un)Conference (back channels) Television shows Eg. #qanda

Education – Many applications – see later PLN – Personal Learning Network

Develop yours by following educators in your field

Who?

Individuals Celebrities ? Organisations & Societies Companies ? Institutions Marketers Spammers

Twitter is down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd4WZ3LqCKw

How? – The tools

Free twitter account at - http://www.twitter.com

Install Tweetdeck from - http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

iPhone/iPod - iTunesApps – Tweetie, Tweetdeck, Twitteriffic

URL shorteners

With only 140 characters you can’t afford URLs

like - https://classroom.jpc.qld.edu.au/Collaboration/Virtual%20Class%20Rooms/58041932-2009-44a2-bc1b-d3d0344219e4-defaultaspx/senior/seniorCentral/sandy/default.aspx?PageView=Shared

Use service like http://tinyurl.com/

produces http://tinyurl.com/ygxmtww

Other services include http://bit.ly/ & http://doiop.com/

* Tweetdeck automatically incorporates URL shortening

How ? - Settings - Bio

Set your bio message

How ? - Settings - Avatar

Upload your avatar image

How ? - Settings - Theme

How ? - Twitter – Following

•Some suggestions at : http://etherpad.com/fbe3y3M6hn

• Also clicking on the thumbnails in other people’s profiles is a good way to find people

How ? - Twitter – Following

How ? - Using Twitter

Shows your tweets and those of the people you follow. Also Stats, @ replies, Direct messages & Trending topics

Shows only your tweets. Also your avatar, bio and thumbnails of your followers

My clicking a thumbnail and the icon shown the following options are available

How? – Special syntax - @

Include in message @tweetname and they will see it regardless of whether they follow you or notThis is also the way to specifically reply to a particular person. Roll over tweet and then click

Tweetdeck

or

How? – Special syntax - D

Direct messageStart message with D tweetname and only they will see it Eg D GuyKawasaki - Good post yesterday on . Well done.

Tweetdeck

or

How? – Special syntax - RT

Re- Tweet - acknowledging the tweet of another

Start message with RT @tweetname followed by text of tweet. Resends the whole tweet to all your followers. There are variations on this. Eg. RT @GuyKawasaki: Five ways to lose a customer in a flash http://om.ly/PZtR

Tweetdeck

How? – Special syntax - # Special identifier tags for search terms

A search term is decided on for a specific event or topic and then used in tweets. These tags can then be searched and aggregated

Eg. #qsite09 #edrev09 #medievalbumperstickers

Google Gadgets for search

Integration with iGoogle portal Search for “twitter search #”

OR Google Gadgets for your webpageSearch for “twitter search #”

How? – Tweetdeck Ultimate tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDOXHEfxrw

Tweetdeck – Settings

•Settings • Login• multiple accounts • colours • services

Tweetdeck – Search Functions

Useful - Selected groups

iPhone - Applications

“Tweetie”

The next level of Twitter use begins once you have a client for your phone or PDA!!

iPhone - Applications

“Tweetdeck” for iPhone

Also a free App called “Twitteriffic”

Tweet Aggregators

Used as peer feedback mechanism and discussion space

http://twapperkeeper.com/

• Simply type the “#” tag (Eg. “#qsite09”) search term into the tool and it will display the tweet stream in different ways• No Twitter account required

http://twitterfall.com/

http://visibletweets.com/

Lists

Lists are groupings created by twitter users

and enable subscription to a whole group

http://listorious.com/

Other Resources

•http://brizzly.com/

•Provides embedded images•Trending topic explanation

•http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

Classroom application

My activityStudents were given sets of relevant web links and then had to summarise them in 140 characters and use a #tag in the message and a shortened URL . We then searched (aggregated) the tweets and discussed them as a class

Search on “#reviseit1”

28 other classroom applications

GoogleDoc compiled by educators and initiated through twitter

Twenty eight Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom (http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_118cfb8msf8)

Twitter in the Back Channel In public speaking, back-channelling is the

practice of electronically passing notes among some or all of the audience. When sanctioned this practice is particularly useful for speakers who are attempting to dynamically modify their presentations based on immediate feedback from the audience. When unsanctioned this practice is often very distracting for the presenter. Meebo and Twitter are common back channelling devices although any chat room style device works

Twitter in the Back Channel Teaching With Twitter: Not for the Fai

nt of Heart