Apart from showing you lots of cool new technologies, I hope this course will also serve as a means of social networking for you, first with other Region 12 librarians, and then with whomever you want! Online social networking has grown exponentially over the past few years, and it seems like you can't talk to anyone under the age of 18 without hearing about Twitter.
As you know, blogs are a great way to communicate with the rest of the world, but twitter does it faster! Twitter revolves around the question "What are you doing?" The answer to this question, called a tweet, is limited to 140 characters. It’s hard to say much in 140 characters – that’s the fun part! When you “follow” someone, their tweets are channeled into a centralized location so you can conveniently keep up with people.
But do you really want to know what someone is having for lunch? Or when they are brushing their teeth? A different way to think about Twitter, a more professional way, might be to ask this question instead: “What has caught your attention at the moment?” While it won’t ever replace traditional professional development tools, Twitter can be a great way to stay current with the goings-on in your field. If you follow people in the same field, you can find out what they’re reading, watching, viewing, thinking, etc. You can develop a dialogue by contributing your thoughts and discoveries as well. Building a community of followers and then and contributing to that community is an essential part of using Twitter professionally.
There are all kinds of people to “follow”:
- Authors
- News channels
- Newspapers
- Weather alerts
- Movie stars
- Shakespeare
- Freud
- Dr. Seuss
So…Start using Twitter!
- Go to Twitter.com and create an account (if you don’t have one already).
- Create your profile. Upload a picture (a little one), and tell people a little bit about yourself. You can also link to your blog to allow people to read more from you if they want to.
- Start following people. You can search for people you know by clicking on Find People in the tool bar at the top of the page. There are many librarians that Twitter, you just have to find them! You can:
- Do a Google search for twittering librarians.
- Search the JustTweetIt Directory: http://justtweetit.com/education/librarians/
- Ask around. It’s possible that your colleagues are on Twitter and you didn’t know it!
- Check your favorite blogs – people who write blogs might also have Twitter accounts.
Posting to Twitter:
With 140 characters, you’re rather limited in what you can post in a Tweet. So what do you do if you want to point out a cool website or an interesting article, but the URL is way longer than 140 characters? TinyURL has the solution! This site takes your long, complicated URLs and shrinks them significantly to something tweet-able. It will also allow you to customize your URL.
TwitPic allows you to share photos on Twitter. A TwitPic account is included with your Twitter account. After uploading your photo, add a message if you want to, and TwitPic will automatically post a link to the picture and your message to your account.
How to use Twitter in your library:
- ManyVoices - http://twitter.com/manyvoices. “A Twitter story created by 140 Elementary and Middle School students across the globe.” This collaborative story is comprised of 140 Tweets of 140 characters each. Afterwards, the story was collectively edited and revised in a wiki (week 7). You can read it on Twitter, or you can download a PDF version of it for free from the wiki (http://manyvoices.wikispaces.com/)
- Lots of ideas! http://www.collegeathome.com/blog/2008/05/27/twitter-for-librarians-the-ultimate-guide/
- Idea #1: Use Twitter to create your own story. You can have each person in a class contribute, each class in a school, or you can go international!
- Idea #2: Book discussions held in real time. Put up the title of a book and let your kids go. They'll have to be judicious in their word choice and really think about what they want to say with their 140 characters.
Fun Twitter Extras:
- Twitscoop – See popular “buzzwords”
- TwitterFox – install this plug-in and see your Twitter feed right in your browser
http://www.nevillehobson.com/2009/01/07/tips-to-help-you-get-started-with-twitter/
http://news.cnet.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/
Discovery Exercise:
1. After creating a Twitter account, browse through the "how-to" guides under the Resources heading for more in-depth info.
2. Start following at least 10 people. How did you decide who to follow? (Don't forget to send me your Twitter name and include it on your blog so everyone can all follow you!)
3. Read through Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide. Click on some of the links that look interesting to you. Think about how you could start using Twitter - either for your own personal professional development, or for your library.
4. Write a blog post summarizing your thoughts about Twitter. Do you love it? Hate it? What would you change? Do people at your school use it? Do you students use it? What kinds of things would you use it for at work?Part 2
If you’ve made it this far, you already have three items or “things” completed of the ’23 Things.’ We hope you are enjoying the adventure so far and having fun. Remember to share with colleagues knowledge or experience that may help them out if they get stuck or vice versa!
But how do you qualify for CPE Credit? Good question! You need to do two things. You have to register your blog with me and record your progress on each of the ‘23 things’ on your blog. Reminder: Clearly identify each WEEK and each exercise (THING) in your entries. I will track and verify your progress in a log that I will maintain. So, here’s the second part of Thing #4 – click here to register your blog. You will then be officially registered and become eligible to receive your CPE Credit upon completion of all “23 Things.”
Remember … your blog address is in the format http://insertname.blogspot.com/
It’s really that easy and just think, now there’s only 19 more things to go. :)
Curriculum Connections
- Idea #1: A blog is an excellent forum for discussion of issues. Create one for the next school, local, state, or national election and discuss the issues of the day.
- Idea #2: A book discussion blog is a library favorite. Start one today and then branch out into other topics such as pro/con topics of interest, student opinion surveys, or campus activity discussions.
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