Twitter Resources Round-up

I’ve been using Twitter for years for everything from keeping in touch with colleagues to sharing professional development and curriculum materials with other teachers. In the years since I’ve joined, I often first learn about current events from Twitter (@BreakingNews is my favorite).

Since I’ve been doing this for a while, I have some links I can share, from blogs that I’ve written for NCTE, Bedford/St. Martins, and my own site. They were written over the past few years, so forgive any links that are broken please.

• Twitter: 140-Character Professional Development and Writing Tool
• Twitter Resources for the Classroom
• Ten Handy How-To Resources for Twitter
• Ten Ways to Use Twitter with Colleagues
• My Top 3 Tips for Teaching with Twitter
• What If Students and Teachers Tweeted for Help?

If you’re interested in collecting Twitter links in a simple way for students, Paper.li can be a useful option. The tool gathers Tweets from your feed that include URLs and lays them out in a newspaper-style format. I’ve written several pieces about using Paper.li:

• Paper.li in the Classroom: The Basics
• Paper.li in the Classroom: Alternatives and Activities
• Twitter and Paper.li: Getting Better All the Time

Most recently, I’ve written a series of posts on using Twitter Chats, which are real-time, online conversations that use specific hashtags to help organize the discussion. Twitter Chats can be a powerful tool for students and colleagues. You can read more about them in these posts:

• Connecting with Twitter Chats
• Teaching with Twitter Chats
• Introductory Twitter Chat Activities
• Advanced Twitter Chat Activities
• Saving Twitter Chat Archives
• Activities Using Twitter Chat Archives

Also, if you’re even slightly interested in how you might use Twitter in the classroom, take a look at William M. Ferriter’s essay “Why Teachers Should Try Twitter” from Educational Leadership. The article explains, “For educators who use this tool to build a network of people whose Twitter messages connect to their work, Twitter becomes a constant source of new ideas to explore.” It includes some tips and how-to’s as well as a personal story on how the experience affected the author’s understanding of differentiated instruction.

Hope that helps any readers who are interested in expanding how they use Twitter. I’m willing to share whatever advice and experience I have, so contact me if you need more or have a question I might be able to answer.