Kevin Blissett: Out of the Cave » twitter

Optimizing with Twitter

admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:51:32 +0000

Great video here highlighting lots of cool Twitter tools you can use to increase your effectiveness. (Friends in China need to use a proxy to access the video.)

Branding Yourself on Twitter

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:51:31 +0000

Dan Schawbel, writing for Mashable, suggests a myriad of strategies for effectively getting your message out on Twitter and, at the same time, introduces many Twitter tools I hadn’t heard of before nor tried. I’m just beginning to work my way through several of them, but I particularly liked the first one I tried: TwitterGrader. This application ranks your Twitting prowess in your city, state, and country.

Schawbel’s opening salvo:

Today, Twitter has roughly 6 million users and is projected to grow to 18.1 million users by 2010. With all those people, the chances for networking are endless and connecting with new people can lead to career opportunities, so it is essential that your personal brand exists on the service. Last month we showed you a step-by-step process for building your personal brand on Facebook, and today we’re going to show you how to do the same thing on Twitter. By leveraging the Twitter platform to build your brand you can showcase yourself to a huge and growing audience.

Read the rest here.

BusinessWeek on Social Media

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:20:27 +0000

I came across this excellent guide to social media from BusinessWeek via Mashable. Among the included articles are:

CEOs Who Use Twitter
Keeping Momentum in Social Media
Starting a Corporate Social Network. Don’t!
and nine other links

Great info. Check it out.

More Twitter…

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:53:05 +0000

My interest in Twitter continues unabated. David Hopkins posts a nice slideshow highlighting Twitter’s usefulness and application to teaching.

Twitter in Education

View more presentations from hopkinsdavid.

Another Look at Twitter’s Utility

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:04:28 +0000

As a follow up to my previous post on Twitter’s classroom applications, I touted the microblogging service as a nice agent for collaboration but struggled to come up with additional uses. In reading a Lifehacker article by Adam Pash, I realize that I may not have given Twitter enough credit for classroom application, especially as a timely search tool.

I’ve been playing around with Twitter Search for a bit, and I do indeed see how this function could be student-useful for finding mounds of information as it happens. The article also sheds light on other possible utilities. Check it out.

Twitter for Informal Learning?

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:20:30 +0000

Tony Karrer investigates the Twitter phenomenon, particularly as it relates to learning and/or classroom application. I have to say, I’m finding it difficult to see how Twitter could be a major tool for learning in my classroom or personally, though it certainly can be a good tool for collaboration if used correctly. (As we cannot receive phone tweets here in China, this application is limited.) Yes, it can be one tool in the box, but I don’t think it’s a principal one.

I do most of my personal learning and information gathering in the following ways:

aggregating feeds of interest into my Google Reader
receiving news alerts of interest on educational and other topics into Google Reader
searching for articles of interest in Digg
Facebook–I get lots of good info from my friends, including video which is right on the page
blogging–this is by far my most professionally valuable activity as it compels me to do research, consider issues, and basically get it right
Ning groups

For personal and classroom collaboration, I recommend:

Ning–create your own customized classroom or school network. A one-stop shop for much of what you’ll want to do.
An online docs sharing network such as Google docs (not preferred due to formatting issues) or, better yet, Box.net
Twitter (if it’s fully functional)
Google suite of tools, including Google Docs, Google Sites, etc.
Email still works
Ustream for live presentations
Slideshare for slideshows
Class blogs for reflection and information
Class wikis for gathering and making sense of information

Thoughts?

UK Teachers: “Phew!”

Kevin Blissett — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:10:59 +0000

So the UK’s Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, assures a teachers’ group the the recent revamping of the national curriculum will not forgo inspiring the nation’s children with a strong dose of history so that it can include skills related to Twitter and other social media. Well, isn’t that special!

First of all, any school curriculum that does not adequately include teaching learners about the past is no curriculum, in my mind. Moreover, as I’ve been pushing since day one on this blog here and here, it shouldn’t be an either/or proposition. History and the other core subjects are essential; and so is teaching students the skills they need in today’s world. There is time enough for a skilled teacher to fit them both in.