Twitter

The New York Times calls Twitter "one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." TIME Magazine says, "Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app," and Newsweek noted that "Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter."

Click [|here] for a list of bookmarks about Twitter. Also, check out [|Twitter Freaks] Diigo group--a collection of Twitter resources spearheaded by Apple Distinguished Educator Lucy Gray. Tons of cool stuff!

Find other teachers sharing your interest area at [|Twitter4Teachers].

12-16-08 New York Times [|Mr. Tweet Recommends Friends to Follow]

[|Omnee] Helps you build your network.

[|Mr. Tweet] Your Personal Network Assistant!

[|Twitter in Plain English] Video explain what Twitter is and how it works.

[|The Big Juicy Twitter Guide] by Caroline Middlebrook

[|Are You Twittering? Here's How I Use Twitter]From Edublogger Good post on using Twitter.

[|Twitter-ific Success] by Bill Ferriter Great blog post on the power of Twitter and how to get started.

[|Twitter as a Metaphor for Learning]

05-18-08 Business Week [|Why Twitter Matters]

[|Listening to the Audience (Twitter) at Web 2.0 Expo: The Balance of Value vs Entertainment] Blog post by Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester Research: Social Computing. Tweeting--sometimes referred to as "backchannel talk"--impacts presentations.

Wonder what would happen in our classrooms if students could inform learning through "backchannel talk";)

[|Howe Schools in rural Oklahoma reaches out to parents and community through Twitter.]

[|Twittervision] A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter. What is [|Twitter]? It is a social network. Folks around the world type in no more than 140 characters about what is happening in their world--from "what are you doing right now" to news headlines.

[|Twitter--Frivolous by Name, Not by Nature Blog Post] "Within my own (rather small) Twitter network I can easily step into live conversations between scores of teachers, largely from the edublogging community, as they participate in perpetually evolving conversations about pedagogy. Colleagues across the world drop hints and tips about resources, leading to extremely dynamic sharing... Utilities such as Twitter and Jaiku enable increased connectivity for personal and professional networks, and fuse the functionality of instant messaging, chat rooms, and forums."

[|Twitter Cloud] Some teachers using this ability in the teaching of poetry.

[|Twitter Fan Wiki] "Since the [|Twitter] folks hadn't put up a wiki yet, it seemed like a good idea to get one going out of the community. Lately there's been a bunch of scripts and other cool ideas pushed forward and it's finally time that we had a place to bring them all together."

[|Twitterpic] Share your photos on Twitter!

[|Tweeterboard] Conversation analytics, links and feeds from Twitter. And, there is more!

12-17-07 NPR [|Middle School Kids Write Story on Twitter] ALSO SEE the story in action. [|"A Twitter story created by 140 Elementary and Middle School Students Across the Globe"] ALSO SEE this wiki on Twitter collaboration stories.

[|8 Cool Twitter Tools]

Video tutorial on Twitter--click [|here].

[|Many Voices]--a collaborative writing project using Twitter. From that Google Docs page:

"This is a collaborative story created by 140 different middle school students across the globe using Twitter.com. Each student will use the same Twitter account to contribute their 140 (or less) characters. Each contribution will be copied and pasted into this Google doc as the story unfolds. (This project was inspired by Cameron Reilly at The Podcast Network. He came up with the original idea of Twittory stories.)

How to participate: 1. contact me: mrmayo.org@gmail.com. Or, twitter me @mrmayo. 2. I will send you an e-mail invite to The Sign Up Page. 3. When your time is up, log in and have your students add individual updates to our collaborative Twitter Page, Many Voices.

The story will start to unfold below:

1. In the depths of New York City, on top of the Empire State Building, a creature rested. That creature was me. 2. As I feel my life slipping away from me, I can barely remember a time when I was happy. I remember my friends and family. Like a dream. 3. I feel like I'm totaly lost. It's like I'm in a scary movie. I can't even see because it's so foggy. What am I going to do? Where can I go? 4. Maybe I'll slowly creep away tonight, while the city sleeps, and make my way back to the depths of the ocean. A place I call home. 5. As I start down, I can still see movement in the city. So I creep lightly through dark alleys so nobody can see me. Suddenly, 6. I see a light turn on in a window. My eyes lock with a young woman holding a baby. She screams and I start to run.

In the depths of New York City, on top of the Empire State Building, a creature rested. That creature was me. As I feel my life slipping away from me, I can barely remember a time when I was happy. I remember my friends and family. Like a dream. I feel like I'm totaly lost. It's like I'm in a scary movie. I can't even see because it's so foggy. What am I going to do? Where can I go? Maybe I'll slowly creep away tonight, while the city sleeps, and make my way back to the depths of the ocean. A place I call home. As I start down, I can still see movement in the city. So I creep lightly through dark alleys so nobody can see me. Suddenly, I see a light turn on in a window. My eyes lock with a young woman holding a baby. She screams and I start to run."

From William Ferriter Hey All,

Here are a few Twitter Tips I've picked up in the last few days. I know there's many of us that are new to this whole thing so I figured I'd share:

1. To start following someone, you first have to find their username. I do this by typing their last name (or their username if I know it) in the "Search" box at the bottom of the sidebar on the right hand side of the screen.

2. To send a direct message to someone---rather than a message to your entire following---type "d" + "username" at the beginning of your message. So a direct message to me might look like this: " d plugusin : You're a geek, aren't you?"

3. If you're replying directly to someone, use an "@" + "username" at the beginning of your message. So a reply to something that I wrote would look like this: "@plugusin : Great point, but as usual...I disagree." The @ symbol will automatically include a link to my original post in your reply....which allows other users to go back and see what we were talking about. It threads the conversation.

4. There are lots and lots of edubloggers that are Twittering and are good to follow. I added Jeff Utecht of the Thinking Stick (jutecht) and Ewan McIntosh of edu.blog (ewanmcintosh) today. Those guys are pretty brilliant techies and they share great resources via Twitter all the time.

5. To get your Twitter messages sent to your IM account (which is handy for those of you that already IM), start by going to the "Phone and IM" menu under "Settings" at the top right hand corner of your screen. That is where you will enter your IM client information.

Then, when you add a new person to follow, you have to turn "Notifications" on (the default setting is for notifications to be off, but this is something you can change as soon as you add a new person to follow). To turn notifications "On" for people you've already added, click the "Following" link in the sidebar on the right hand side of the Twitter homepage. From there, you'll have the option to turn notifications on for all of the people you're following.

6. Early in the week, Sheryl sent out this weblink to 8 Cool Twitter Tools: [ http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/03/8_cool_twitter_.html ]http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/03/8_cool_twitter_.html

In it is something I've found valuablethere are free applications that you can download to follow the Twitterverse in your system tray without having to keep an Internet window open. The one I use is called Twitteroo. It was a super easy download and it allows you to send and receive Tweets without having to go to the Twitter website directly. It also gives you an update of the number of new Tweets every 3, 5 or 10 minutesyour choice.

From Will Richardson's blog--[|On The Twitteralization of Blogging, Networks, Etc] .--Examines the use of Twitter and its replacement of blogging in a negative way.