A whole range of ideas from Steve Wheeler for Teaching with Twitter. I can see several having uses here. There are also links to others who’ve experimented with Twitter for teaching.
Teaching with Twitter
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Tag Archives: Twitter
Twitter tools
I’ve recently seen a range of new twitter tools – no doubt there are many more that I’ve not seen!
- http://twitter.mailana.com lets you see friends & also local Twitters; perhaps a little “busy” to easily understand.
- Twitteranalyzer Massive range of stats, though I’m a little sceptical about the “followersdensity” maps. If it is accurate … Hello to my clearly massive Argentinian audience.
- Twitter Stream is rather fun – concentrating on all users, rather than individual ones – but fascinating the difference we get when replacing a “z” with an “s”.
- Twitterthoughts also looks at the community as a whole – and uses the same software as Gapminder.
- Tweetlater was something I found recently – only used it once, but remembering it could be useful in the future.
And there are 1001 other tools that I could so easily mention!
Why 140 characters?
I posted a query to Twitter, asking why twitter had a limit of 140 characters. Within seconds, both @intellagirl & @sclater had pointed out that it was based on a standard SMS – though I still wasn’t entirely sure – as I’d thought SMS was 160 characters (which Wikipedia confirmed) @josiefraser then supplied me with 140 Characters » How Twitter Was Born – it’s from the 160 SMS characters – but they cut it back to 140, so that a user ID could prefix the message.
Twitter had quite a few mentions in the Guardian/Observer over the weekend … seems there’s been 103 so far this month, that’s 24 in the Guardian, 7 in the Observer & a further 71 on the website. I’m guessing that means “71 in addition to the repeats of the paper content”. Can’t work out how to have a “not” in the search – I could filter to one of the three (Guardian/Observer/online), but not to “not online” (or, I guess “Guardian & Observer”)
Twitter mashup
#ukSnow map. – from Today’s Weather! (OK, so us Brits just can’t cope with a wee smattering of the white stuff, but it’s a good example of Geo-twittering).
Twitter traffic increases 10-fold in a year
UK: Twitter traffic increases 10-fold in a year
I’ve certainly been adding to that 10 fold increase.
(Image from TweetStats)
Twitter tools.
Several people (AJCann was the first) have pointed me to Twitter Friends. I’ve had a look – I rather like the Network tool.
From there I discovered how annoying it would be to follow me on Twitter.
Neither, of course, are to be confused with TweetFriends (which still wasn’t able to explain how either Mendeley_com or Debategraph found me.
Twitter – in the Guardian.
I’ve noticed a huge number of articles in the press on Twitter. Was going to post a link to the one I was reading in Tuesday’s G2. However, I had difficulty finding it when searching the Guardian for twitter … 724 mentions of it, of which 25 were this year (so, about 3 a day). In fact, the first 10 items were dated between tuesday & today. Unfortunately, “G2” doesn’t seem to be a field I can search on, so will have to locate it later. (I.e. find the G2 on the living room floor & find select more useful than “Twitter” as a search term!)
Storytlr
I’d signed up to Twistory, after reading about it last week, and really rather like it. When I first signed up, I wasn’t tweeting that much. However, fairly shortly afterwards I was at ReLIVE08 & there was a very active back channel. Suddenly Twitter started to make sense & then I wanted to feed all the #Relive08 tweets into something like Twistory, but wasn’t sure how. Sheila has just posted about using Storytlr to do just that. And it lets me add more than just a twitter search.
I added my Twitter a/c, Flickr & then two RSS feeds. However, when I came to create a story (it would be useful when you have to add ‘end date’ if ‘today’ is prefilled & you only have to edit it if required) – it only offered my my Twitter/ Flickr accounts – though the RSS feeds were already in the story – whether I wanted them or not.
Twistory: Turning your Twitter history into an online diary
SArah Robbins points out Twistory – (note the correct URL – http://www.twistory.net ) It seems a rather useful tool.
Most Useful Twitter Services
Now that I’ve started to get into Twitter, I wonder how many of these “Most Useful Twitter Services That Can Help Your Business Grow” will also be relevant to Educational uses of it.