Twitter for Teachers

You have probably heard of Twitter before and may even have your own personal account. However, you may not have realized that Twitter can be a great social media tool for teachers too!

Here is a quick run-down of Twitter and how you can utilize it for professional development and collaboration!

Getting Started: Visit www.twitter.com to create your free account. You will create your Twitter "handle" (user name) during this process as well. This might be the hardest part of the process :) Your handle will start with the @ symbol and can be your real name, a name to describe your interests, or a name that describes where you work. @amanda_vollmer, @SMASDtechcoach, or @FoxBVStem could be some examples of user names I could have chosen.

Finding People to Follow: To follow someone on Twitter means to subscribe to their tweets or updates on the site. Once you follow someone, their tweets will show up on your timeline. You can reply to their tweet or retweet it to those who follow you so they can read it too! You can follow people who have the same interests as you (other educators, people who like comic books, etc.), friends or family, news organizations, or just those you want to learn more about (actors, musicians, politicians, etc.).   You can search for people to follow right from the Twitter homepage. Once there, click on "Who to Follow" or "Find People You Know." You can also search for names, topics, etc. in the search bar. In order to follow someone, simply visit their Twitter page and click “Follow”. Here is a compiled list of educators you may want to follow- Twitter4Teachers. People can also choose to follow you, so once you get the hang of things you can tweet to share information,  resources and links, or share something exciting you've done in class.

Here is some great information from Scholastic about ways to use Twitter for PD and collaboration:

#HASHTAGS

Hashtags are keywords that categorize what you’re tweeting about. For instance, you might use “#edtech” at the end of a tweet about how your students use tablets. You can also search Twitter for a hashtag that you’re interested in. This will bring up tweets from other users who have tweeted about that topic. Here’s a look at some (but definitely not all) of the most popular education hashtags.

General education: #teaching, #teachers, #learning, #k12, #PLN, #edreform, #commoncore, #ccss, #teacherproblems, #edcamp, #globaled

Educational technology: #edtech, #elearning, #edapp (or #edapps), #byod, #blendinglearning, #ipaded, #1to1

Content or grade-level specific:

Literacy: #kidlit, #literacy, #readaloud

Math: #math, #mathed

Science: #scied, #STEM, #NGSS, #scienceteacher

Social studies: #socialstudies, #historyteacher

Arts: #artsed, #musiced

Early childhood: #earlyed, #preschool, #ece

ESL: #esl, #ell (or #ells)

Special education: #sped, #specialneeds, #autism, #dyslexia

Physical education: #PEgeeks

Speech and language: #SLpeeps, #speech

Other hashtags to note:

#tlap: Inspired by Dave Burgess’s (@burgessdave) Teach Like a Pirate

#comments4kids: Denotes when teachers want others to comment on students’ blog posts.

#flipclass: The latest and greatest ideas about flipped learning

CHATS

Educators join up for Twitter chats every day of the week. Moderators pose questions to keep the discussion on topic. Everyone uses the same hashtag in his or her tweets so it’s easy to follow the conversation. (You’ll also find that people use these hashtags throughout the week.) You can search for the hashtag manually on the Twitter page or try programs like Hootsuite and TweetDeck to follow along. Ready to give it a try? Pop in on some of these popular chats.

The Scholastic article also includes some great ideas of educators and organizations to follow. Click here to read the full article! If you need help getting started or have any questions, please let one of the tech coaches know!