Twitter is a 21st century social media platform. This social media site can be accessed through apps and online. Twitter acts as a blog in a way, allowing its users to share their thoughts by tweeting messages that are 140 characters or less. Once you tweet your message, if you have a private account anyone who is following your account can see it. If your account is not private anyone on twitter can see what you wrote. Twitter encourages the use of hashtags as well. By using a hashtag in your post you are able to direct your message to similar tweets about the same topic. If you click on a hashtag you will be able to see all tweets that have used the same topic in their message.
Twitter is often used by people as a way to keep up with what their friends. However, despite what many people may believe, Twitter can play an important role in the life of an educator. Along with following friends accounts, you can follow other accounts related to topics you're interested. As a graduate student working towards my masters in literacy, I follow various educational accounts. Such accounts include, High Point University, edutopia, Reading Rockets, and NC Public Schools. These are just a few of the educational accounts that I have chosen to follow. By following them I am able to see continual information posted that relates to my interests as an educator. If there is something I feel compelled to share with my followers, I can retweet what the account has tweeted themselves. Sometimes your newsfeed can become overwhelming when following both personal and professional accounts. This issue leads me directly to my next point.
TweetDeck is a wonderful extension of Twitter that allows you to create a sense and order to your Twitter newsfeed. Instead of displaying one page, TweetDeck is organized into columns. Each column displays something different such as your profile, notifications, messages, etc. You have the freedom to add additional columns to help make your account personalized for your needs. When you click "Add column", a page pops up that displays 15 various options for your new column. For my TweetDeck, I like to use the collection and list option. When you choose collection you are creating a column that displays tweets relating to a specific topic, such as education. When you scroll through your newsfeed and come across a tweet you really like and want to add it to your column all you have to do is click the three small dots on the bottom of the tweet then select, add to collection. From there you can select which collection to add it to, if you've created more than one. Once you have tweets in your collection you have the option to share your collection with others. This is a great way for others interested in the same topics as you to easily view the tweets you found valuable regarding a central theme. When you create a list, it is similar to creating a collection. You create a title and then add users to the list. The tweets from the users you select will appear in this new column. You also have the option to embed your list onto your Twitter page. It will appear under lists and anyone who follows you can view things you have pined or retweeted from the accounts you follow, relating to the theme of your list.
In the future I plan to expand my use of Twitter for educational purposes. Using TweetDeck will be a great way for me to organize what I see on my timeline. I will continually follow more reputable educational sources in order to have a wide variety of information on my timeline. Twitter can help me become more aware of what is going on in the educational world, while informing me on best practices that have been researched and now shared on this social media platform. My main goal is to use Twitter as a way to help me as an educator stay in the loop about the latests and greatest trends when it comes to education.
References:
[TweetDeck logo]. Retrieved January 21, 2017, from http://keywordsuggest.org/gallery/667783.html
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