Twitter Extended, Part 1

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Written by Bob Sprankle

Monday, 23 June 2008 00:00

I'm not going to explain or defend Twitter in this week's "Geek of the Week;" I'll let others do it for me. If you've never heard of this "micro-blogging" tool, here's a good "Newbie" guide, an excellent article at Wired about the "cumulative" power of Twitter, and a blog post to get you thinking about the academic possibilities Twitter can offer. What I will serve up this week is some tools to make Twitter work harder and smarter for you, by pointing you in some directions of who and what to follow.

Who Do I Follow?

If you're just starting out, or you want to extend the "Twits" you're already following, then head on over to the "Twitter Pack Project." It's an open wiki where users can recommend people to follow, neatly organized "by topic of interest or geographical area." Make sure to add your own favorite Twits to the categories.

Another way to find people you may want to track is to examine who the people you already follow are following. You can do this easily with Twubble. Twubble brings back a list of people your friends are following (annotated with the name of the person you've been following).

Another tool is Who Should I Follow, which will offer up suggestions (much like Amazon's recommendation system) of who to follow based on the Twitter name entered (either your own, or someone else's).

A quick way to add multiple Twits to follow is to use Twitterator. This would be a great tool for adding an entire class easily, for instance.

So, how do you stop following folks? You can go through the laborious process on the Twitter site, by opening up each person you follow and turning them off; this could take a while, if you want to really clean house. A much quicker way is to use Your Twitter Karma, which lists all the people you follow on one page, where you can bulk-select and delete. You can also see all the people following you, and quickly add them to your follow list.

Follow the News

You don't have to just follow people; you can get your "news fix" from Twitter as well. There are plenty of news organizations joining Twitter to release news alerts. Here are some of my favorite "news-users" I follow for updates: newsalert, CNN, BBC, NY Times, and Reuters.

Keep Your Eyes On the Road

I'm sure many time-sensitive updates will be heading to Twitter besides just news. How about traffic updates? It already exists (albeit, you'll probably have to do some searching for updates relevant to your location). One example I've found is Commuter Feed, which provides links for traffic updates of many major cities around the world.

Tell Me

Another great way to use Twitter is to ask the Twitter community to answer questions. Using either TwitterAnswers, @answerme or HelpWith, you can easily post questions that people can then directly respond to. You're even able to announce who's answer was the "winning" choice for you on @answerme. Twitter is a great way to put out a plea for technical support to the folks who follow you. Using either of the sites mentioned will significantly expand your network of helpers.

Who's Tweeting about Me?

Just like Google Alerts, you can have TwitterBeep keep tabs on who's tweeting about you. Simply sign up for an account, put in your Twitter name and provide an address for TwitterBeep to send you the alerts. You can use the site Summize to not only search for tweets that are about you, but search for any use of any word.

I'll be back next week with tools that will assist you in posting and reading your "tweets" as well as some tools to just have some fun with Twitter.

Bob Sprankle has been a multi-age teacher in Wells, ME for 10 years and has served as the school's Technology Integrator for the past two years.

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written by rsprankle@wocsd.org, July 15, 2008

Hi Denise,

I hear you! When I first heard about Twitter, I thought, "Why would I want to do that?" And then I used it and it changed my mind. I started using it last year before going to the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston and immediately saw its potential as one of the presenters was seeking help for a computer crash the night before he was to present and in a panic, and getting "just in time" info and assistance to bail him out. At a conference, Twitter is indispensable to me because I can quickly get information about what presentations are going on and are worthwhile to join. I use Twitter to also follow folks who announce when they update their blogs. I don't use Twitter in my classroom at all (though I know some folks who do). I use it strictly for Prof. Dev. contacts/info.

As I said at the beginning of the article, I'm not going to defend Twitter. I simply wanted to provide some very useful tools for those that have already taken the Twitter-plunge.

Twitter is definitely not for everyone. It's just one more possible tool.

Thanks so much for your comments.

Be well,

Bob

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written by denise.hochman@gmail.com, July 14, 2008

You give some good information about Twitter and how it works, but I still don't see how I can use it effectively in the classroom. It looks like it would take a lot of my time to read all those "Twits" and make some kind of sense out of them. Also how does it help students to write better if they only have a few words?

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