A Beginner's Guide to Twitter
Tool for Today’s Interactive Classroom
By Jimmy D. Clark, M.Ed., MBA
Instructional Design specialist
Austin Community College
Learning Objectives/ Outcomes
In this workshop you will:
• Learn what Twitter is
• Learn why Twitter is an important teaching and
learning tool for the Web 2.0 era
• View some examples of how Twitter is being
used in education today
• Set up a free Twitter account as you follow the
tutorial
• Learn some best practices for using Twitter and
other social networking tools in the classroom
Introduction
• What is Twitter? – A free social networking and
microblogging service that enables its users to
send and read messages known as
tweets.(Wikipedia)
• Messages are limited to 140 characters or less
A Few Twitter Statistics
• December 2009 – 1 Billion + Tweets
• January 2010 – 1.2 Billion + Tweets
• Grew 1,382% between February 2008 and
February 2009
• January 2010 – Tweets passed 10 Billion mark
• Since July 2006 Twitter has averaged
approximately 232.5 Billion tweets per month
Why Twitter? – Networked Society
• Social software tools are useful learning tools in
today’s networked society.
• The chart on the right shows
the links between individuals,
communities, and networks
that enable Pedagogy 2.0
(McLoughlin and Lee, 2007)
Why Twitter? – Participation and
Knowledge Building
• Web 2.0 – Everyone is a content creator
• Participation metaphor – How learners use
social software tools to engage in processes of
social interaction, dialogue, and sharing
• Knowledge-building paradigm – Features
sharing and content creation
Why Twitter? – Collaboration Tool
• Students can engage more deeply with other
students and instructors, subject-matter experts,
and larger community
• Allows personalization
• Connects learners to emerging global network or
“architecture of participation” that reaches
beyond walls of learning institution
Why Twitter? – Connectivity and Social
Rapport
• Sites such as Twitter help students acquire skills
of: informal learning, creativity, digital literacy
• Socializing – Students can share course
information as well as personal information
• Sharing – Students can store, organize, and
annotate resources
• Students can schedule their activities, meet
online, and engage in collaborative learning
activities
Examples of Twitter Use in Classroom
Click the links on the pages that follow to see
examples of how Twitter is being used in education.
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Communications tool
Content management / organizational tool
Data collection
Different disciplines
Information sharing
Newsgathering
Student response system
To teach communication and networking skills
To track a word or a phrase
Twitter Used as a Communications
Tool
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Albemarle, Co., Virginia. Uses Twitter as a tool to keep students and parents in the loop. Administrators send
notices about school-related weather closings, meeting notices and School Board decisions, among other
announcements. http://bit.ly/cr0Aga
MLA. Uses Twitter to create personal information networks. http://bit.ly/cwiEUS
Dr. Natasha Neogi, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Has students tweet questions to her and
announces the most common sticking point at end of class. http://bit.ly/aavx9e
Punya Mishra, MSU. Teaches an online course to students in Plymouth, England. He uses a shared Twitter
hashtag to enable students there to communicate with his class in Lansing, Michigan. http://bit.ly/aavx9e
Twitter as a Content Management
Tool
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Monica Rankin, Professor History University of Texas at Dallas. Uses a hashtag to organize comments,
questions, and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Projects tweets to class. http://bit.ly/cCAQhC
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Cole Camplese, Penn State University. Uses a projector to project a Twitter stream of notes from students.
http://bit.ly/bI88nL
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Cammy Bean, VP of Learning Design, Kineo. Uses Twitter and Tweetdeck to organize and group people she
follows. http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html.
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Mary Howard, Sixth grade teacher in Grand Island, New York. Uses Twitter as her personal learning network.
She shares information on resources and tools she has found. She also selects networks of people to follow that
provide her with their tips, guidelines, and tools that they have found.
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
Twitter as a Data Collection Tool
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Twittering the Student Experience. Alan Cann. http://bit.ly/43uL2
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Gordon, Snyder, Springfield Technical College, Massachusetts. Uses a hashtag to enable students to keep tabs on
other students’ notes. http://bit.ly/aavx9e
Twitter use in Various Disciplines
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English
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Online English Classes - http://twitter.com/learnenglish_
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Teaching English on Twitter - http://twitter.com/teachingenglish
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English and Communication Arts - http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/English-and-Communication-Arts-Teachers
Government
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Andy Garcia - http://twitter.com/andygarcia1987/e-government-class
Twitter as an Information Sharing
Tool
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Twitter Lessons in 140 Characters or Less. Kathleen Kennedy Manzo. http://tinyurl.com/yjct9ml
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Vestavia Hills High School, Birmingham, Alabama. Twitter lesson plans. http://teacheng.us/?p=27
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Cardiff University, Wales. Puts Twitter information about scientific papers in one place, called Tweprints.
http://www.orbitingfrog.com/arxiv/
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University Laboratory High School, Illinois. Uses Twitter to post updates from pieces of literature students are studying. (No
link)
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Jeroen Bottema, Teacher trainer for the School of Education Amsterdam. Uses Twitter to share his thoughts, ideas,
information, and to learn from or get inspired by other people. He says, “I love the way professionals use Twitter as a
backchannel during conferences, using tags, adding depth to presentations and discussions. Microblogging is the informal
learning tool for me.” http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
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Joan Vinail-Cox, Social media and communications consultant, Canada. She gets to know the people whose blogs she follows
by following them on Twitter. She uses it to find URLs and get help when she is struggling with learning how to create
something online or to fix an application that is not performing correctly. http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
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Janet Clarey, Senior Researcher at Brandon Hall Research says, "Once my productivity nemesis, has become a valuable
learning tool. Over time, I have built up a small network of strong links and a slightly larger network of weak links. I think the
primary value comes in two forms: (1) a wider network and, (2)
immediacy." http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
Twitter as a Learning Tool
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Andrew Hampton, Headteacher, Thorpe School, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK, says, "I have a great set of people
to follow and learn lots everyday about learning tools and other tech stuff. Twitter is a major driver in taking my
learning into new and unexpected areas; I'm learning about stuff I didn't know I didn't know."
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
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Barry Dahl, CIO at Lake Superior College in Duluth, MN, says "I learn something new several times a day and
stay connected with people that form my most valuable network. This is the one tool I would choose if I could only
keep one (as long as everyone else kept it also!)". http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
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Gillian Martin Mehers. “"Overall, I was impressed by how much Twitter added to my conference-going experience
... It took me some time to find my "voice", make some personal policies about what, when and how I would
engage with the community through Twitter. And suddenly, I wasn't learning alone anymore."
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
Twitter as News Gathering Tool
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CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Uses it to gather news. (They also use FriendFeed, Scoopler, and
SearchMerge). http://bit.ly/PdYsg
Twitter as Tool for Professional
Development
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Melissa Venable, Curriculum Manager with Kaplan Higher Education, is “amazed at the amount of information,
access to leaders in the field, and potential for professional development.”
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
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Gordon, Snyder, Springfield Technical College, Massachusetts. Uses Twitter as a polling device in class.
http://bit.ly/aavx9e
Using Twitter to Teach Networking
Skills
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Georgia Southern University. Uses Twitter and Facebook to post online assignments.
http://makingconnectionsfye1220.wordpress.com/
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David Parry, University of Texas at Dallas. Uses Twitter in his Introduction to Computer-Mediated
Communication class. http://bit.ly/bD7GJS
Using Twitter to Track a Word or a
Phrase
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25 Twitter Projects. http://bit.ly/jB7GJ
A Basic Twitter Tutorial
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Follow the easy steps on the slides that follow to set up a free account at Twitter. Ready to start
tweeting? Okay, let’s get started.
Step Open Twitter home page
• Open www.twitter.com in your browser.
1. The Twitter home page is divided into three sections. If you hover your computer mouse over the
See who’s here section on the left side text boxes will appear with the names of celebrities who are
online, the names of sports teams, and organizations such as businesses. The Top tweets section
displays current top tweets and is updated frequently throughout the day. The third section allows
you to sign up for a Twitter account.
Step 2: Begin Sign-up Process
2. Click the Give it a try button to begin the sign up process. Enter your full name, a user name and
password, and an email address. Click the Create my account button.
Step 3: Type Security Text
3. The next screen asks you to enter the two words you see in the text box below to prove to twitter
that you are a human being, not a computer program. If you can’t read the words Twitter provides a
button you can click to display two new words. Type the words in the text box and click Finish. If
you do not type the words correctly two new words will display.
Step 4: Select Topics
4. On the next screen you can select topics that interest you to help you find tweets you would like to
subscribe to. Select as many topics as you wish.
Step 5: Find Tweets to Follow
5. If you select the first topic, Art & Design, a list of tweets from artists, designers, art studios,
museums, etc., will display. Click the follow button to subscribe to a tweet. Your selections will be
highlighted in yellow. To see more tweets click the more button at the bottom of the page.
Step 6: Search Contacts
6. Click #2 friends, under Find sources that interest you at the top of the screen. Twitter will
search your Contacts list in your email program and identity the ones that already use Twitter. It will
display the number of people that are not on Twitter and ask if you want to invite them to join. It will
display the names and email addresses of your contacts that are already on Twitter in the middle of
the page. If you like you can click buttons on the right to follow them on Twitter or to send a request
to them, but this step is optional. In the screen shot shown in Figure 7 I have covered up the names
and addresses of the persons listed by Twitter.
Step 7: Twitter Home Page Menu
7. Return to your Twitter home page. The links at the top of the page allow you to change your
Profile information, find people to follow, change your account settings, access Twitter Help, and
sign out.
Step 8: Add Profile Information
8. Click on Profile. You can add your photo to your Twitter account if you want to by clicking the
Photo button. Locate the photo you want to add and click Open. If you want your followers on
Twitter to know where you are when you post a tweet, enter your location in the Location text box.
If you have a web site you can enter the URL in the Web text box. You can also add a brief bio, but
these options are optional. When you are finished, click the Save button.
Step 9: Find People to Follow
9. Click the Find People link at the top of the screen. You can type the name of a person you want to
follow in the search box and click Search. If the person you searched for has a Twitter account and
you want to follow him or her, click the first of the three buttons under the Action bar and that
person is added to the list of tweets you follow. A green check mark will display by that person’s name
indicating that you are following him/her.
Step 10: Change Account Settings
10. Click the Settings link on the menu at the top of the page. The Account tab will display. It lists your Name,
Username, Email address, the language you are using, your time zone, and lets you add your location to your
tweets if you wish. Check the box next to Tweet Privacy, if you wish to restrict your tweets to people you approve of.
Make any changes you want to and click the Save button. You will be asked to type your password before you save the
changes to your account.
Step 11: Change Password
11. Click the Password link on the Settings menu at the top of the screen. If you have forgotten
your password you can send a message to Twitter asking them to resend it. You can also change your
password on this screen.
Step 12: Set-up Twitter for Text
Messaging
12. Click the Mobile link on the Settings menu if you want to use Twitter with text messaging. If
you want to use text messaging enter your mobile phone number in the text box under #2. Click the
Start button to verify your mobile phone. Send this text message to Twitter at 40404: “GO”. If
Twitter receives your message a confirmation message will display on your mobile phone and on the
next screen in Twitter.
Step 13: Change Settings for
Notices
13. Click the Notices link on the Settings menu. You can change these settings so that Twitter will
email you when someone starts following you, if you wish. You can also have Twitter email you when
you receive a new direct message and have Twitter send you email updates. Click the Save button to
confirm any changes you make in these settings.
Step 14: Change Profile
14. The next link lets Twitter users make changes to their profiles. Make any changes you wish to
make and click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.
Step 15: Change Design of Your
Twitter Page
15. Click the last link on the Settings menu - Design. The Design screen lets you
change the background image on your Twitter page and your design colors. Make any
changes you want to make and click the save changes button at the bottom of the
screen.
Step 16: Twitter Help
16. Twitter provides an extensive Help system to answer any questions you may have about the site.
You can search for information you are looking for or choose a category to search.
Best Practices for Using Twitter &
Other Social networking Tools
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Things a teacher needs to consider before using
Friends and friending
Content
Privacy
Security
Best Practices: Things to Consider
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Educate yourself on use of social media tools
How will your social network integrate with your LMS?
What problems will social networking solve?
Understand your school’s social networking policy
Develop online social etiquette policy
Are your students trained in use of social networking?
What is your security plan for using social networking in
the classroom?
Best Practices: Friends and
Friending
• Use different accounts for your personal life and for the
classroom
• Never initiate friendships with students
• Always maintain strictly professional relationship with
your students
Best Practices: Content
• Do not make any comments that might be considered
defamatory, obscene, or libelous
• Be careful when using copyrighted materials
• Post only what you want the world to see
• Do not discuss your students or your coworkers
• Post content that will immediately engage students
• Post new content frequently
• Post only relevant information
Best Practices: Privacy
• Set your privacy settings to limit content your students
have access to
• Check your privacy settings often
• Create a personal account and one for your classes
Best Practices: Security
• Be careful when installing external applications that
work with Twitter
• Update the malware protection on your computer often
• Use passwords that are hard to crack
• Do not fall for phishing scam emails
The End