Twitter is becoming one of the important part of my digital life and personal learning network.  Here is a basic introduction of twitter for teachers. The beauty of twitter is its ease of access ,you don’t have to learn menus and buttons to use this powerful tool

1. Basics- What is twitter ?

Step 1 : Watch this video – Twitter in Plain English

Step 2 : Register yourself on twitter at twitter.com/signup and follow this video

Step 3:     Put your picture and complete your profile in twitter  by going to http://twitter.com/account/settings after you register yourself and login.

STep 4 :  Follow teachers with similar interests on twitter. One way of finding teachers  is to check out of these following directories of teachers in twitter :

• http://twitter4teachers.pbwiki.com/
• http://justtweetit.com/education/
• http://mashable.com/2009/02/16/twitter-professors/
• http://c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/edutwitter.html
• http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/Education-Pack
• http://www.socialbrandindex.com/twitter/education (for universities and higher education)
• http://www.twellow.com/category_users/cat_id/22
• http://twitter.com/education

While following people, keep this in mind

• I follow people whose conversation is valuable to me and who I, therefore, want to “promote” through my attention, and
• I drop people if their refusal to engage when prompted is more annoying and frustrating than the value I derive from their one-way stream.

Step 5 : Install twitter clients. Twitter clients are installable software in your computer which makes it easier for you to follow your tweets. Its optional but it makes following tweets little more organized:

• Try Tweetdeck
• or, TwitterFox(its a firefox extensions)
• Snitter http://getsnitter.com/
• There are lot of other twitter clients out there. You can find the list of top 20 twitter clients here.

Step 6 : Find Information : Once you have followers, you can leverage that network to find information. Learn how to find information by asking questions in twitter.  Other way of finding information related to the a particular topic is to go to search.twitter.com. Make sure you understand the power of twitter to find information and share that with your kids. Its as important as learning search with google.

Step 7 :  Share your work : if you blog ,  announce your blog post to other people. If you are in conference, share your key learnings. Because twitter allows 140 characters , its a great way of announcing your projects and work with the world.

Step 8 :  Go through this presentation on 19 ways to use twitter in education.

Step 9 : What to tweet ? : Learn from 50 ideas on using twitter for educators

Step 10 : Pedagogy - Read this article on using twitter as coursewareand a good paper on microblogging and relevancy

Step 11 :  Network with people who are interested in using twitter for education – join social networks like

• http://tweet4education.ning.com/forum/topics/how-we-can-use-twitter-in
• http://learnhub.com/lesson/1649-twitter-apps-for-education-part-2

Step 12 : Track Event : During the event , go to www.twitterfall.com and put the keyword of conference or conference tags (e.g : #necc) and track tweets LIVE on your computer screen.

Step 13 : Track Education Community : Pulse of education helps you to track useful tweets on twitter related to education.

Step 14 :  Twitter for libraries : From lexirby blog : There are examples of libraries using Twitter as a reference service or to inform its ‘followers’ about new releases, library events and even when reservations come into stock but I’m just not sure how well it has all been received.

Step 15: Think beyond Email Integrate twitter as a messaging system with your students. Look here for more inspiration.

Step 16 : Twitter your assignments : This can’t be applied for all subjects but there are some really innovative ways of twittering assignments.

Step 17 :  What is edmodo or Yammer ? - If some stupid people in your district don’t like web 2.0 or you are concern about security  , there is edmodo. Its a twitter like service for schools with built-in security features that give teachers privacy controls over their virtual classrooms. www.edmodo.com. You might also want to check a similar service built for corporations www.yammer.com

Step 18:   SMS - Learn how to use twitter as a sms tool – watch this video

Step 19 : Twitter Groups - Learn how to create groups in twitter by following this tutorial. You can also check out this twitter groups of teachers.

Step 20 : Using twitter as a district communication tool - Learn how Broward school is using twitter as a district communication tool.

Step 21 :  Twitter as teacher training tool :  Explore the usage of twitter as a teacher training tool.

Step 22 : Book Free ebook on twitter for teachers available now.

Step 23 : Downsides : Every technology has its downsides. You might want to check potential misuse of twitter by reading these posts by Holtz and readwriteweb.

I hope you will find this useful. If you have any other ideas , please leave a comment and hey, I am kapil1312 on twitter.

P.S. I have been trying to solve daily "real" issues which educators face while integrating technology in their curriculum. Click one of the icons on the right sidebar to join the growing community of educators reading this blog by RSS or by email...