Twitter for Beginners

We are about to embark upon our Staff Digital Learning Journey. We are calling our sessions “Digital Discovery”.  It is an exciting time for us all (and probably filled with some nervousness).  In an effort to make this new learning fun, interesting, and worthwhile, but not overwhelming, I am providing staff with an opportunity to attend weekly 30-40 minute learning and discovery sessions. To enable all staff to have the opportunity to participate, these sessions will be offered twice a week (we have a number of part-time people who only work certain days).

This week (and probably for many coming weeks), we will focus on Twitter.

My goals for this week’s Digital Discovery sessions about Twitter include:

• The Why of Twitter – Learning from and with amazing educators – 24-7
• Signing up on Twitter (if they are not already signed up) – including the importance of using a real name and a real photo
• Twitter Language – # @ DM
• Some hashtags to follow (#sd36learn, #bced, #bclearns, #brcklearns, #edchat and specific grade chats like #1stchat, #kinderchat, and others)
• Some people to follow (how to find people to follow will come at a later session) 

I have written about Twitter a number of times and have found it to be some of the best professional development I have been involved with in many years.  I have come to get to know some amazing educators, and for that, I am grateful.

Some of my previous posts about Twitter include:

Twitter – The Very Basics

Twitter for Newbies

Top Ten Tweeters (this is actually a very in-depth list)

Learning to Tweet

Something I did not discuss much in any of the above posts is SPAM.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SPAM

Sometimes you may get Direct Messages (DM’s) saying things like:

“Someone is saying something awful about you here ________” followed by a link
or “Do you want your picture on this site?  ________” link

It may look like this:

These are spam messages.  If you click on the links then you will end up sending that spam message out to those who follow you.

DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS IN THESE MESSAGES.

In addition, when sending direct messages to others, you might want to ensure your direct messages are specific and include something personal so people will know the message is from you and not a spammer.

In time, you will come to recognize what is spam right away.

If your account becomes compromised (which happens all the time and is not a huge deal – just annoying to you and your followers) and you end up sending out spam yourself, don’t worry, it is really easy to fix.  Follow the directions on this link from Twitter.

I hope the staff at my school finds this information helpful and valuable!  I can’t wait to share Twitter with everyone!