Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Journal #4: "Join the Flock" & "Enhance Your Twitter Experience."

Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock. Learning & leading with technology, 37(8), 12-14. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Join_the_Flock.aspx.

Miller, S. M. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience. Learning & leading with technology, 37(8), 14-17. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/...and.../June_July_2010_Join_the_Flock.sflb.ashx.  

These articles by Ferguson and Miller are basically beginner guides for teachers that want to get involved with Twitter and expand their online professional learning network(PLN). Ferguson's article is basically just a review of what we learned in class. What I did like about the article is her comment about how by only allowing 140 characters, Twitter doesn't let you embarrass yourself (try telling that to Charlie Sheen). The Miller article was a bit more interesting in introduced two Twitter organizers which I had never heard of before. The one that she recommends is called Tweet Deck, and this looks like it could be pretty useful by organizing different Twitter groups into columns. This would be useful for me, as it would separate my different groups, like sports, comedy, and education. She also talks about a cool site called Hootlet which makes it really easy to send links out by twitter while you are surfing the web. Both of these writers emphasize the need to be active on Twitter, and this will help you build your PLN. 

Question 1: What is the advantage of re-tweeting?

Answer: Re-tweeting can help you build your personal network because other users will be happy that you liked their post and they may eventually follow you. This in turn will give you a more visible web presence.      

Question 2: What are some other Twitter resources that Miller doesn't mention? 

Answer: There are now hundreds of Twitter apps that you can access to improve your Twitter life. Twitbin is an app that keeps your Twitter feed always running on your browser, and lets you tweet as you browse other pages. This basically arranges it so you don't have to keep switching back to the Twitter home page all the time. Another one that looks cool is Twittervision, which lets you see who is Tweeting in a certain area. So if you want too know what they are tweeting about in Armenia, you can find out.

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