To tweet or not to tweet is often the question asked (with many apologies to The Bard).
Well, as Social Media Lead at Adhyayan, when asked this question, all I can say is “Yes! Tweet! Tweet!”
As of May 2015, Twitter has 500 million registered users of which 302 million as considered “active”.
So why should you, as an educator sign up to Twitter and potentially get lost in this sea of voices and opinions?
For starters, you’re bound to find similar voices or voices with similar areas of interest on Twitter,
Secondly, Twitter can be a great way for you and your students to connect with peers across the world or even in the same city. You can share ideas, get opinions, publicise articles and accolades and even find resources in a matter of minutes.
Here’s our Twitter Cheat Sheet to help you get over your Twitter Stage Fright!
GLOSSARY
Tweet: A 140-character message. It can be your thoughts, and event update, an inspirational quote, a message, an announcement or a notice.
Retweet (RT): Re-sharing or giving credit to someone else’s tweet. If someone tweets something that you agree with or if you would like to share the same tweet with your followers, you can retweet a tweet.
Handle: Your username or twitter id is also referred to as your twitter handle. We insist on using the @necdbs2014 handle with every tweet that goes out. Your tweets will be retweeted. Mentioning and tagging the speakers and the panelists is also important while tweeting.
Mention (@): A way to reference another user by his username in a tweet (e.g. @adhyayanED). Users are notified when @mentioned. It’s a way to conduct discussions with other users in a public realm.
Example: @AdhyayanEd conducting training for the facilitators of the National Education Conference 2014 @necdbs2014
Example: “Education leadership must inspire practices that insist on #QualityEducation” said @AdhyayanEd’s @Kavita_Anand at @NECDBS2014.
Hashtag (#): Keywords that start with a pound# sign are called hashtags e.g. #teaching, #schools, #india). A hashtag is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on topics. You can also click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in real time — even from people you don’t follow.
Remember to use appropriate hashtags with your tweets.
#primaryEducation #LeadingEducation #donbosco #ICSE #IB #ABL #QualityEducation #EducationLeadership #SchoolLeadership #SelfReview #Community #Parterships #adhyayan
To explain it in more generalized internet terminology, it can be termed as a key word search on twitter. For instance, a #school and #leadership search will source all the tweets which have the word school or leadership in them. This can be an excellent source of learning what is happening globally on the front of school leadership. A great way to keep oneself inspired and updated. As an educationist, you can find interesting content by running hashtag searches and then share it with all the participants at the conference. In this way, the participants will get the opportunity to get real time updates from all the panels across the conference.
The use of hashtags and twitter handles listed above is highly recommended.
So what are you waiting for? Head over to www.twitter.com and sign up today! Don’t forget to tweet us @AdhyayanEd once you’re done!