Searching for "special education"
http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V68N1/inrev15.html
How can academic libraries best help students sort through the growing thicket of online information? By Stanley Wilder
The premise of information literacy is that the supply of information has become overwhelming, and that students need a rigorous program of instruction in research or library-use skills, provided wholly or in part by librarians.
The idea behind information literacy is that our typical freshman is drowning in information, when in fact Google provides her with material she finds good enough, and does so instantaneously. Information literacy assumes that she accepts unquestioningly the information she finds on the Internet, when we know from research that she is a skeptic who filters her results to the best of her ability. Information literacy tells us that she cannot recognize when she needs information, nor can she find, analyze, or use it, when she demonstrably does all of those things perfectly well, albeit at a relatively unsophisticated level.
Simply put, information literacy perceives a problem that does not exist. Furthermore, it misses the real threat of the Internet altogether—which is that it is now sufficiently simple and powerful that students can graduate without ever using the library. That is unfortunate because, for all its strengths, the Internet cannot give students the high-quality scholarly information that is available only through subscription, license, or purchase.
As Roy Tennant noted in the January 1, 2001, Library Journal, “only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find.” Any educational philosophy is doomed to failure if it views students as information seekers in need of information-seeking training.
Information literacy is also harmful because it encourages librarians to teach ways to deal with the complexity of information retrieval, rather than to try to reduce that complexity.
“The library is a place where readers come to write, and writers come to read.” Dow casts students not as information seekers, but as apprentices engaged in a continuous cycle of reading and writing.
Librarians should use their expertise to deepen students’ understanding of the disciplines they study. My note: ant that’s why LRS needs area specialists, not traditional librarians.
The library must also do a better job of reaching more students, more often. Librarians need to use their expertise to make the library’s online presence approach the simplicity and power of the Internet.
http://projectinfolit.org/
about early adults and their research habits
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/access/white-paper-social-media.pdf
#tfsocialmedia
Social media objectives:
- promotion
- collection management tool
- Outreach
- teaching and learning
Opportunities and challenges
- opportunity to build a sense of community between the library and its users
- the variability of skills across library staff for using social media effectively, striking the right tone between professional and personal, coordinating activities across the institution to avoid duplication
- maintaining visibility for the library brand and copyright issues relating to hosting library resources on social media sites
Policies and management:
- Librarians are divided on the benefits of introducing formalized social media policies and plans. About a third of libraries responding to the Taylor & Francis survey had a policy in place, but over 40% had no plans to introduce one
- Some believe that representing the library as a professional function with a
consistent tone is the priority, while others believe that a more human approach is important, with individual staff free to bring their own ideas and personalities to social media activities.
Effectiveness and assessment:
- difficult to prove return on effort and that the time required to do this was a major barrier to more comprehensive analysis of impact
- framework for evaluation, so it is likely that assessment against commonly agreed metrics will become an increasingly important part of social media activity within the library in the near future
Current Social Media Practices:
- In a study from the mid 2000s (Cantrell and Havens1 ), most library directors in the US when questioned about social media said they did not think that libraries had a role in social networking
- A more recent study from 2012 (Kai-Wah Chu and Du4) shows how use of social media by the library has now become mainstream. In this survey of libraries in Asia, North America and Europe, 71% were found to be using social media tools with a further 13% saying they planned to use them
Advantages of using social media
n Financially the costs of using social media are perceived to be low;
n It requires little training;
n It promotes library services and disseminates news quickly, delivering this information more directly to library users;
n It increases engagement and interactions with library users;
n It helps gather feedback to enhance user services;
n The promotion of library holdings via social media can help increase usage of content;
n It enhances communication both within the library and with other departments;
n It can be used for outreach activities through onward sharing, well beyond the institution itself, helping build connections and reputation more broadly
Social Media Objectives: graph on page 8 of the PDF document:
A To promote events
B To promote library services
C To promote resources/collections at the library
D To update on library refurbishments
E To promote new acquisitions
F To promote library guides, exhibition guides
G To connect with new students joining the university
H To engage with the academic community
I To connect with the wider community beyond the university e.g. the town in which the institution is based
J To connect with distance learners
K As a customer services tool- complaints, suggestions, enquiries, feedback
L To highlight subject specific information
M To connect with potential students
N As a teaching tool to promote information literacy, technology and writing tips (not library based)
O To promote courses
P As a research tool to locate official documents and studies
From UK-based focus group: “The library is a programme, not just a building.”
Channel preferences: Graph on page 10 of the PDF document
SOCIAL MEDIA USES Table on p 13 of the PDF document
Twitter n Distribute library news and information
n Provide customer service
n Build connections with researchers
n Build connections with other librarians and institutions
Facebook n Distribute library news and information
n More social and less formal than Twitter – share photographs and run competitions
n Arrange events including tracking RSVPs and sending event updates
n Engagement with students
Pinterest n Promote general library collections, digital and archive special collections and information literacy
n Set up of online repositories for students to pin researched references as part of
collaborative group work
n Display book titles to save time browsing and promote new titles
n Provide an arena for students and course leaders to pin reviewed and recommended reading
for a particular topic
n Develop communities with other online libraries
YouTube n Streaming film collections
n Instructional ‘how to’ videos teaching information literacy skills and how to use library
services and resources
There are also a number of other social media products that are being used by librarians that reflect regional
preferences and the need for the specific functions offered by niche applications.
Collection usage and discovery: Graph on p. 15
Teaching and learning
From US-based librarian interview: “The trend in education now is to create environments that foster collaborative learning. Faculty have ditched textbooks and course management systems in exchange for a Facebook page for their class, or a wiki, or a blog. These online environments are fun; students already know how to use them and are more motivated to comment, discuss and share in these environments than a dry CMS.”
Social media policies and management, p. 18
73% of respondents stating that they believed more roles dedicated to social media would appear in the library in the future.
Effectiveness of social media
From UK focus group: “We keep track of something particularly successful, then we redo the campaign 6 months later.”
From US focus group: “We have very few interactions with anyone on our Twitter feed.”
“Twitter is definitely the best platform, because we hashtag all of our posts with the keyword
of the publication, and so for the academic audience, once they click it’s going to pull up all
of the similar publications under that topic.
Promoting library social media channels
From UK focus group:
“We retweet each other to encourage new followers.” My note: Suggested by me regarding SCSU_Library for Twitter and Pinterest and SCSUTechinstruct but “considered” (in local lingo, slow death of the idea)
http://higheredmanagement.net/2014/10/22/stuck-in-the-90s-online-course-design-in-traditional-higher-education/
Of course, not all aspects of online course design require a team of specialists, a longer development time, and more funding. Some things can be done quickly, cheaply and by individuals with focused skill sets.
But technology can, when built with a deep understanding of how students learn, meet both of these needs. We can build online courses that provide students with hundreds of opportunities to test their knowledge. Using scientifically-based learning analytics, we can provide each learner with immediate, context-specific feedback. We can build software that constantly responds to each student’s cognitive and educational differences and serves up activities that address these differences.
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Michael
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Judith
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Alex
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Maria
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Alex
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Judith
7th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference (QQML2015) 26-29 May 2015, IUT-Descartes University, Paris, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is our pleasure to invite you in Paris (IUT-Descartes University) for the 7th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference (QQML2015, http://www.isast.org) which is organized under the umbrella of ISAST (International Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology).
This is the seventh year of the conference which brings together different disciplines on library and information science; it is a multi–disciplinary conference that covers the Library and Information Science topics in conjunction to other disciplines (e.g. innovation and economics, management and marketing, statistics and data analysis, information technology, human resources, museums, archives, special librarianship, etc).
The conference invites special and contributed sessions, oral communications, workshops and posters.
Target Group
The target group and the audience are library and archives professionals in a more general sense: professors, researchers, students, administrators, stakeholders, librarians, technologists, museum scientists, archivists, decision makers and managers.
Main topics
The emphasis is given to the models and the initiatives that run under the budget restrictions, such as the Information Management and the innovation, the crisis management, the long-term access, the synergies and partnership, the open access movement and technological development.
The conference will consider, but not be limited to, the following indicative themes:
- 1. Information and Knowledge Management
- 2. Synergies, Organizational Models and Information Systems
- 3. Open Data, Open Access, Analysis and Applications
- 4. Multimedia Systems and Applications
- 5. Computer Networks and Social Networks,
- 6. Health Reference and Informatics
- 7. Information Technologies in Education
- 8. Decision making in service innovation
- 9. Data Mining, content analysis, taxonomies, ontologies
- 10. STM information development
Special Sessions – Workshops
You may send proposals for Special Sessions (4-6 papers) or Workshops (more than 2 sessions) including the title and a brief description at: secretar@isast.org or from the electronic submission at the web page: http://www.isast.org/abstractsubmission.html
You may also send Abstracts/Papers to be included in the proposed sessions, to new sessions or as contributed papers at the web page: http://www.isast.org/abstractsubmission.html
Registrations are registration forms are available from: http://www.isast.org/qqml2015registration.html
Contributions may be realized through one of the following ways
a. structured abstracts (not exceeding 500 words) and presentation;
b. full papers (not exceeding 7,000 words);
c. posters (not exceeding 2,500 words);
In all the above cases at least one of the authors ought to be registered in the conference.
Abstracts and full papers should be submitted electronically within the timetable provided in the web page: http://www.isast.org/.
The abstracts and full papers should be in compliance to the author guidelines: http://www.isast.org/
All abstracts will be published in the Conference Book of Abstracts and in the website of the Conference. The papers of the conference will be published in the website of the conference, after the permission of the author(s).
Student submissions
Professors and Supervisors are encouraged to organize conference sessions of Postgraduate theses and dissertations.
Please direct any questions regarding the QQML 2015 Conference and Student Research Presentations to: the secretariat of the conference at: secretar@isast.org
Important dates:
First call of proposals: 29th of September 2014
Deadline of abstracts submitted: 20 December 2014
Reviewer’s response: in 3 weeks after submission
Early registration: 30th of March 2015
Paper and Presentation Slides: 1st of May 2015
Conference dates: 26-29 May 2015
Paper contributors have the opportunity to be published in the QQML e- Journal, which continues to retain the right of first choice, however in addition they have the chance to be published in other scientific journals.
QQML e- Journal is included in EBSCOhost and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
Submissions of abstracts to special or contributed sessions could be sent directly to the conference secretariat at secretar@isast.org. Please refer to the Session Number, as they are referred at the conference website to help the secretariat to classify the submissions.
For more information and Abstract/Paper submission and Special Session Proposals please visit the conference website at: http://www.isast.org or contact the secretary of the conference at : secretar@isast.org
Looking forward to welcoming you in Paris,
With our best regards,
On behalf of the Conference Committee
Dr. Anthi Katsirikou, Conference Co-Chair
University of Piraeus Library Director
Head, European Documentation Center
Board Member of the Greek Association of Librarians and Information Professionals
anthi@asmda.com
Professor Joumana Boustany
Local Chair
Université Paris Descartes – IUT,
143, avenue de Versailles –
75016 Paris
joumana.boustany@parisdescartes.fr
30+ QR Code Resources
http://www.themobilenative.org/2014/05/30-qr-code-resources.html
Amidst discussions at LRS and forthcoming strategic planning –
The LinkedIn Higher Education Teaching and Learning group has a discussion started:
“The library as space is becoming more important, even as students are able to log on to databases from wherever.”
based on the the article
Spikes, Stacks, and Spaces
from Inside Higher Ed blog: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/spikes-stacks-and-spaces
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Julie
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Andrea
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Russ
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Sharon
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Laura
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Dr..Myrna
50 Shades of Mobile
http://www.themobilenative.org/2012/09/50-shades-of-mobile.html
Smart phones (MLDs)
iPads
Blogs
BYOD/BYOT
Videos
Math, Science, History: Games Break Boundaries Between Subjects
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/
possibilities for a formal Renaissance-Man-Liberal-Arts education remain limited to the elite. The average, or common, student is encouraged to choose majors and institutions that track into a specialized vocation.
MincraftEDU and SimCityEDU provide flexible options for integrating familiar games with traditional classroom curriculum.
The ability to apply knowledge across disciplines is important, but it is not enough. It is important to combine that knowledge with strong social and emotional skills that serve as the foundation for good citizenship in the 21st Century.
The MindShift Guide to Games and Learning
more on gaming in this blog: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=gaming
http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-nmc-horizon-report-library-EN.pdf
p. 4 new and rapidly changing technologies, an abundance of digital information in myriad formats, an increased understanding of how students learn evolving research methods, and changing practices in how scholars communicate and disseminate their research and creative work.
Engagement requires an outward focus
A liaison who understands how scholars in a particular discipline communicate and share
information with one another can inform the design and development of new publishing services, such as
digital institutional repositories.
Liaisons cannot be experts themselves in each new capability, but knowing when to call in a
colleague, or how to describe appropriate expert capabilities to faculty, will be key to the new liaison role.
an increasing focus on what users do (research, teaching, and learning) rather than on what librarians do (collections, reference, library instruction).
hybrid model, where liaisons pair their expertise with that of functional specialists, both within and outside of libraries
p. 6 Trend 1: Develop user-centered library services
Many libraries are challenged to brand such a service point, citing a “hub” or “center” to refer to services that can include circulation, reference, computer support, writing assistance, and more.
For liaisons, time at a reference desk has been replaced by anticipating recurrent needs and developing
easily accessible online materials (e.g., LibGuides, screencasts) available to anyone at any time, and
by providing more advanced one-on-one consultations with students, instructors, and researchers who
need expert help. Liaisons not only answer questions using library resources, but they also advise and
collaborate on issues of copyright, scholarly communication, data management, knowledge management,
and information literacy. The base level of knowledge that a liaison must possess is much broader than
familiarity with a reference collection or facility with online searching; instead, they must constantly keep up
with evolving pedagogies and research methods, rapidly developing tools, technologies, and ever-changing
policies that facilitate and inform teaching, learning, and research in their assigned disciplines.
Librarians at many institutions are now focusing on collaborating with faculty to develop thoughtful assignments
and provide online instructional materials that are built into key courses within a curriculum and provide
scaffolding to help students develop library research skills over the course of their academic careers
p. 7 Trend 2: A hybrid model of liaison and functional specialist is emerging.
Current specialist areas of expertise include copyright, geographic information systems (GIS), media production and integration, distributed education or e-learning, data management, emerging technologies,
user experience, instructional design, and bioinformatics.
At the University of Guelph, the liaison model was abandoned altogether in favor of a functional specialist
approach
p. 8 Trend 3: Organizational flexibility must meet changing user needs.
p. 9 provide education and consultation services for personal information management. Tools, workshops, websites, and individual consults are offered in areas such as citation management, productivity tools, managing alerts and feeds, personal archiving, and using social networking for teaching and professional development.
p. 11 data management, knowledge management and scholarly communication
digital scholarship
p. 12 Liaisons need to be able to provide a general level of knowledge about copyright, data management, the need for metadata and the ontologies available in their disciplines.
p. 13 Liaisons need to be able to provide a general level of knowledge about copyright, data management, the need for metadata and the ontologies available in their disciplines.
p. 16 replacing the traditional tripartite model of collections, reference, and instruction
The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
http://www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/
Create, Don’t Just Consume
Connect and Network
Share Your Resources
Guide To Education-Oriented Twitter Hashtags
http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/education-twitter-hashtags-730×1805.jpg
Getting Connected
With these tips and tools, you’ll be able to get connected with the people that matter most to you on Twitter.
- Follow experts: Get useful information from other experts in your field.
- Twitterholic: With Twitterholic, you’ll be able to find the most popular users on Twitter.
- Make friends with your competition: It may seem counterintuitive, but connecting with your competition can help keep you in the know and well networked.
- Twitter Fan Wiki: Find a directory and more in this wiki.
- Don’t follow too many new people at once: Follow too many people without reciprocation, and you’ll come off as a spammer.
- TwitterPacks: Check out this tool to locate people according to their interest group.
- WeFollow: Find people by industry or hobby using WeFollow.
- Follow back: When you discover new followers, be sure to follow them back if they are interesting or offer value to you.
- Keep your follow ratio balanced: Follow too many people without being followed back, and you will seem spammy, but if you have lots of followers that you don’t follow back, you’ll come off as snobby.
- Localtweeps: You can use this tool to filter tweets by zip code.
- Participate in Twitter events: Be a part of #followfriday, #musicmonday, and similar events to be a part of the community.
- Geofollow: Search for others in your location with this site.
- Twitterel: With Twitterel, you can find users with common interests.
- Twinfluence: Use Twinfluence to discover users with good reach, velocity, and social capital.
- Twellow: Use Twellow to find Twitter users based on category.
- Twitter Snipe: Twitter Snipe will auto follow users based on your niche.
- Talk to people about their interests: Show that you’re human by discussing things that are important to others.
- Follow your followers’ followers: Check out the follow lists of people you find interesting and connect with them.
- Be patient: Amassing Twitter followers doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient, and you’ll build a group of valuable followers.
Search
Put Twitter’s massive amounts of information to work by using these search tips and tools.
- Twitority: This search engine offers results based on Twitter users with authority.
- TwitterLocal: Search for tweets around a specific area with the help of this tool.
- Use keyword tricks: Take advantage of the advanced search option on Twitter.
- Use quotation marks: If you’re looking for a specific term, put it in quotation marks to get better results.
- Twithority: With Twithority, you’ll find Twitter search results with authority.
- Use hashtags: If you come across a useful hashtag, click on it to see what else you’ll find.
- Subscribe: Keep up with useful keywords and hashtags by setting up an RSS subscription for them.
- Pay attention to trends: Stay on top of the latest in your field by seeking out and participating in trending topics. For instance, students enrolled in political science degree programs may want to follow trending topics related to upcoming local and state elections.
- Retweetist: Retweetist shares popular trends, topics, and people using retweets on Twitter.
- Tweet Volume: With this tool, you can find out if your keywords are popular on Twitter or not.
- Tweetmeme: Check out Tweetmeme to learn about retweeting stats for articles on Twitter.
- Twitt(url)y: Find out about hot news with this tool that sorts URLs by how frequently they are mentioned in tweets.
- Twackle: With this aggregator, you’ll be able to find news and more in a single destination.
- Twitter Sniffer for Brands: Twitter Sniffer makes it easy for you to keep track of conversations about you on Twitter.
- Twuoted: Find popular quotes with this site that follows the #quote hashtag.
- Tweet Scan: Follow Twitter conversations by keyword and category using Tweet Scan.
- Monitter: Stay on top of 3 keywords at once with this keyword search tool.
- Pay attention to timing: Monitor the most popular hours for your Twitter followers, then concentrate your most important messages in those hours for more effective tweeting.
Organization
With these tips and tools, you can keep all of your information on Twitter well organized.
- Use a tool to manage Twitter: Don’t let your research get lost-use a tool to organize everything.
- Tweetdeck: Make use of this tool to organize tweets from various groups into easy to manage categories.
- Don’t try to read everything: You will be on Twitter all day and all night if you try to read every single tweet from your followers-just drop in when you can.
- My Tweeple: This tool will help you organize the people you’re following.
- Tweetree: See your Twitter stream in a tree with organized conversations using Tweetree.
- Make good use of alert tools: Make sure you’re not missing good conversations by setting up alerts that will tell you when friends and other Twitter users discuss keywords you’re interested in.
- Tweet Clouds: Analyze your keyword usage with this tool.
- Twitterator: Monitor groups of people while staying organized with the help of this script.
Authority Building
Follow these tips and use these tools in order to establish yourself as an authority in your field.
- Own your brand: Even if you don’t want to use your real name on Twitter, at least claim it so that no one else can use it against you.
- Be retweetable: Share tweets that others will want to retweet.
- Use popular tweets as blog posts: If you share a site or bit of information that turns out to be very popular, use it as a jumping off point for a blog post.
- Use your real name as your Twitter name: Be more personal and authoritative by using your real name.
- Respond: Don’t just sit in your ivory tower-talk back to the people who want to engage with you.
- Share your credentials: Let people know why you’re an expert in your field.
- Shake things up: Offer a good variety in your stream of links, blog posts, retweets, responses, and questions.
- Just don’t spam: Don’t do it-no one likes it, and it won’t be tolerated.
- Share information: Gain a reputation as an expert by sharing helpful links, resources, and more.
- Be sincere: Be honest and considerate in your tweets and replies.
- Find out authoritative keywords: See which keywords the authorities in your niche are using.
- Discuss what’s hot: Share your opinions and resources on what’s currently moving on Twitter.
- Don’t go crazy with links: Avoid using your Twitter account just to post links to your blog.
- Point out interesting information: Don’t just talk about yourself, discuss what’s happening in your field.
- Follow authorative accounts: Populate your Twitter neighborhood with people who have authority.
- Promote your Twitter URL: Share your Twitter name on your email, blog, Facebook, and other locations online so people can find you.
- Slow down: Don’t clog up your followers’ Twitter screens-keep your Tweets relevant and interesting, not inane and constant.
- Don’t always talk about yourself: Talk about more than just your own agenda.
- Be helpful: Spread goodwill by answering questions, introducing others, and offering recommendations.
- Reply to others: Get involved with the people you follow and engage in the Twitter conversation with replies.
- Show your personality: Show off the person behind the brand on Twitter.
- Use keywords: Use keywords that are important to your field to attract followers.
Getting Value
Follow these tips to make sure you’re getting value out of your Twitter experience.
- Networking: Meet offline with others in your field to get great value out of Twitter.
- Be useful: Give advice, resources, and more.
- Fill out your bio: Make sure people know where to go to find more information about you.
- Use Twitter on your blog: Keep your blog updated up to the minute with Twitter.
- Stop abuse in its tracks: Use Twitter to find out who is badmouthing you, and use action to stop it.
- Connect with complementary businesses: Find value in Twitter by getting connected with others that can support your business or niche.
- Enjoy ambient knowledge: With Twitter, you’ll be able to stay on top of news in your field around the clock.
- Listen: Just listen, and you’ll find interesting and useful information.
- Promote events: Use Twitter to promote live and virtual events like seminars, sales, and more.
- Ask for help: Get instant feedback by asking for help on Twitter.
- Meet your customers: Use Twitter as a way to interact with your customers, whether through the service or in real life.
- Listen to your critics: Find out what people are saying about you, then respond to it and act on it.
How To Connect With Students On Twitter
- Don’t require that students follow your account.
- Commit to posting at regular intervals.
- Vary the time of day of the posts.
- Post links to content that is user friendly.
- Know your audience’s interests.
- Don’t just retweet, generate original links.
- Suggest people, organizations or magazines to follow.
- Be personal.
- … yet avoid the overly personal comments.
Twitter Rules Every Teacher Should Know
Rule #3
If you’re adding the Twitter logo to some marketing materials, here’s how to properly format it all. Same goes if you’re just adding in the Twitter Bird to other materials. Useful to know.
Rule #4
Always capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet. Seriously. That’s a little-known rule that basically everyone doesn’t follow but it’s worth trying to remember!
A Useful Twitter Cheat Sheet
Twitter Tips For Students and Teachers
See Also: A Visual Guide To Twitter For Beginners
- Actually complete your bio. You’ll get more mileage out of your Twitter account if you actually create a profile that says something about you, offering potential followers information about your interests, professional or otherwise.
- Learn the basics. Learn the basic terminology for Twitter and the major functions it can perform by doing a little reading on helpful social media blogs beforehand. You’ll thank yourself later.
- Get some style. Before you send out your first tweet, decide what kind of tweeter you want to be. The London School of Economics and Political Science offers up three major styles here so you can learn more about the subject.
- Learn from others. One of the best ways to learn how to use Twitter is to spend some time seeing how others have set up and been using their accounts. Luckily, there are tons of other academics on Twitter to learn from.
- Don’t be mean. The Internet is full of people who are all too happy to say some pretty harsh things, but just because they’re incredibly tactless doesn’t mean you have to be. Never say anything on Twitter you wouldn’t want people to find out about, or wouldn’t say in any other situation. If people are hassling you, ignore them and move on.
- Announce that you’ll be joining a hashtag chat or conference. If you’re going to be tweeting more than usual, let your followers know in advance so they can choose to tune out if they’re not interested in your live tweeting or chatting.
- Actually respond in a reasonable amount of time. If someone asks you a question or directs a tweet your way, respond as soon as you can, just like with email or any other digital communication, especially if you’re using Twitter in your courses.
- Be gracious and say thank you. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way on Twitter. If someone helps you out or shares your research, don’t forget to say thanks.
- Make mistakes. No one is perfect, and if you’re new to Twitter you’re probably going to have a few gaffes along the way as you learn the ropes. That’s OK! Don’t let it slow your enthusiasm for using the social site.
- Start your own hashtag chat. Twitter chats have exploded in popularity in recent months, so get in on the trend while the getting’s good. Start your own chat on an academic topic, or chime in on other bigger existing chats for a chance to network.
- Find and use some hashtags. You’ll make it easier for others to find your tweets if you add a few relevant hashtags here and there.
- Do ‘Follow Friday’. Every Friday, Twitter explodes with suggestions on who to follow. Offer up your own and you may just end up in someone else’s suggestions.
- Share the stuff you’re reading. Reading a story on a site like Edudemic? Found an amazing article in pop-science about your research field? Share it! If it’s interesting, it’ll probably get retweeted and passed around, and you might just interest a student or two to boot.
- Reach out and connect with someone. Not everyone you connect with on Twitter has to be in your field or even in academia. In fact, you might enrich your research and your professional life by reaching out to other fields and professions.
- Do some backchannel talks. Whether you have students post to Twitter during class or ask them to share comments during a presentation, these backchannel talks can help facilitate conversation and provide a record of a shared learning experience.
- Create your own classroom hashtag. One way to keep classroom tweets organized is by having a shared hashtag that all students use. Just make sure no one else is using it!
- Connect Twitter to Moodle or Blackboard. You can help push students to interact using Twitter by adding a Twitter widget to your Blackboard or Moodle site for the class. Follow the instructions here to get started.
- Don’t mandate your students follow you on Twitter. Don’t force students to follow you on Twitter unless it’s part of the course. Let them decide to follow or not.
- Be happy (see #5 above). You don’t have to be super serious on Twitter to earn students’ respect. In fact, loosening up could just help improve your rapport with your students.
- Live-tweet a conference or event (see #6). Share your conference-going experience by tweeting updates about it throughout the day to your followers.
- Share some of your lesson plans. Educators and academics can come together to share and collaborate on lesson plans quite easily using Twitter.
- Collaborate with other teachers / parents / students. If you find you have similar interests with another academic, use Twitter to work together on research ideas, classroom solutions, and other topics.
- Collaborate with other classrooms in your school, district, or another country.Why work alone when you can connect with other college classrooms? That’s just what many college classes are doing these days.
- Host reading discussions. Holding a reading discussion over Twitter gives everyone a chance to chime in, even shy students who might not otherwise speak up.
- Actually use Twitter for writing assignments. Want to teach your students the art of brevity? Assign them poetry or prose to be written on Twitter.
The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter Hashtags
Are you looking to figure out exactly which Twitter hashtag is the right one to follow? There’s no shortage of options and it can feel overwhelming. Sure, there’s the popular #edchat and #edtech hashtags most of us follow. But what about the more focused tags that you’re missing out on?
| #elearn |
I’d suggest using this rather than the longer #elearning |
| #flipchat |
chat platform for flipped classroom educators. See here. |
| #flipclass |
platform for those interested in the flipped classroom. |
| #flippedclassroom |
Obsolete. Use the shorter #flipclass. All about the flipped classroom |
| #gbl |
game-based learning |
| #globalclassroom |
Good for finding global collaboration / connections, sharing #globaled practice. Official chats run monthly over 3 days. Click here for schedule |
| #ipadchat |
name speaks for itself. See here. |
