Week+9

=Week 9 - Twitter=



**//Thing 15 - Exploring Twitter - Tweet!//**
Before you read anything, watch the Twitter in plain English video by commoncraft. [|Twitter], according to the website, "is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People write short updates, often called "tweets" of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and can be searched on Twitter search".

The [|frequently asked questions about Twitter] explain the process in more detail. Basically it is an easy way to follow people and for you to let people know what you are doing without having to read an entire blog. The short messages are 140 characters or shorter and are called tweets. Twitter is also called micro blogging where each tweet is considered a micro or mini blog post. Users on twitter have a user name preceded by an @ sign. There is a way in Twitter to add tags (keywords) to your tweets by using the hash # sign which makes it easier to track certain topics. You can search what people tweet about using these hash tags. If you receive a tweet you want to pass along you can "retweet" it to all your followers. Read The Beginner's Guide to Twitter for more information on how to use it.

As a School Librarian you can use Twitter to send tweets about library events to keep your users in the loop and make them feel connected. Check out this [|list of twittering librarians and libraries]. The New York Public Library @[|nypl] is the leading online public library on Twitter worldwide. Of course you can also find libraries on Twitter that are closer to home! Check out @MerrillCazier for example and follow them to get the latest updated.

Twitter is also useful for professional development. Check out "20 Twitter Chats Every Librarian Should Know About" to get a feel for what is out there and what hash tags you might want to search for to learn more about the field.

Sheryl Fullner from Nooksack Valley Middle School in Everson, Washington suggests the following use of Twitter: "Have students Twitter messages to the library with book recommendations of 140 characters or less. Then post the tweets on the library webpage or even on a bulletin board. If your library does not have access to Twitter, or to reinforce word processing skills, let students type tweets in Word and use the word count function to check on the number of characters."

Please read Andy Burkhardt on How Libraries Can Leverage Twitter.

If you are really into this topic you can read a recent NYT article called Nine Things You Didn’t Know About Twitter.

__Thing 15 Learning2.0 Tasks__
1. Read the [|newbies guide to twitter to get yourself up to speed on this micro blogging phenomenon].

2. Go to [|Twitter] and see what people are saying about library or libraries.

3. Read about [|twitter for libraries and librarians].

3. Create a free Twitter account and find some people and libraries you want to follow.

4. **Integrate your tweets into your blog** by adding a twitter widget that posts your tweets.

5. **Blog about your Twitter experience and whether you can see a use for it in your current or future school library.**

Optional stuff for the advanced
If you are really into Twitter and you are following a lot of people you might get special software to manage all your tweets by organizing groups of people you follow. Formulist and Hootesuite should be helpful in this case. Read more about twitter? How about the 10 twitter features you might be missing.