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basically advertising for them, I assume they won't care.
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@joe_edtech
For several years now, I have begun every Tuesday by posting information about one "free" Web 2.0 tool that teachers can use with their classes or for professional development. Not surprisingly, one of the tools that has really taken off has been Twitter. Actually, Twitter has seen tremendous growth in the last year and a half just among professionals in education both looking for PD and the opportunity to share their success stories. I'm at a conference right now and participants are using Twitter to record notes on sessions and speakers, and share new discoveries with their teams back home. (If you are interested, you can search #CoSN15 and check out what's going on.)
Also, while students don't use Twitter as much on their own as they did a year ago, they do tend to use social media more regularly than they use email for social or immediate conversation. One of the speakers I heard yesterday said his son told him his presentation on school technology is flat wrong because, "you keep talking about how we use email. We don't use email. Email is for old people." Well, I don't wholly agree, because email is for a whole host of professional purposes. Nonetheless, savvy teachers and coaches have noticed. If you want to quickly get information to your class or your team, send a Tweet. Even if they don't have wireless Internet at home, we find that most students do have access to mobile phone technology 24/7 (whether they should actually be using them 24/7 is a topic for a different post, but here's a preview, "Go outside! It is nice out!").
Also, while students don't use Twitter as much on their own as they did a year ago, they do tend to use social media more regularly than they use email for social or immediate conversation. One of the speakers I heard yesterday said his son told him his presentation on school technology is flat wrong because, "you keep talking about how we use email. We don't use email. Email is for old people." Well, I don't wholly agree, because email is for a whole host of professional purposes. Nonetheless, savvy teachers and coaches have noticed. If you want to quickly get information to your class or your team, send a Tweet. Even if they don't have wireless Internet at home, we find that most students do have access to mobile phone technology 24/7 (whether they should actually be using them 24/7 is a topic for a different post, but here's a preview, "Go outside! It is nice out!").
When I first started discussing Twitter with my Warrior staff last Fall, I told them that the best reason to be on Twitter was for professional development and staying current with educational and technological trends. One of the things the we all noticed when we started using Twitter on a regular basis was how frequently and consistently some bloggers would be posting. @edudemic and @rmbyrne post through all hours of the night, and I was baffled. How in the world did they have enough energy to be that prolific?
Then I stumbled across their secret. They manage their accounts and schedule tweets to be sent at certain times of the day using third party software like Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a web 2.0 tool that allows you to manage your social media presence all on one screen. For educational leaders, this means that you can follow your "Home" feed in one column, your favorite bloggers or news sites in another, and watch the entire thread of a Twitter Chat in a third column. However the greatest feature Hootsuite offers is the ability to schedule a Tweet for later delivery. For teachers and coaches, you can now schedule reminders for your students or team members to be delivered at the time of day that will have the most impact for them, even if you are happily snoozing away by then.
If you want to do a little more with Hootsuite, and manage your entire Social Media presence, or have a school activity Twitter account managed by more than one person, there are some very good in depth tutorials out there online. This is a good and fairly comprehensive by Steve Dotto from dottotech: Hootsuite Tutorial: How to Optimize Your Social Media.
If you are a teacher or administrator, and you want to use Twitter to contact your parents and students, make sure to check with your school's board policies and procedures. For teachers, it is a good idea to have your students follow you. It is NOT a good idea to follow your students! Avoid that if at all possible. If you think this kind of messaging can be valuable but your students and parents, but you aren't ready to try Twitter just yet, you should check out Remind or Edmodo for good alternatives.
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