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“Twitter” flickr photo by Uncalno https://flickr.com/photos/uncalno/8537569665 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
The word “Twitter” (as in a certain social media platform) has been turning up more and more in the news recently. Twitter itself isn’t new (if you’re interested, you can read the history of Twitter in this post on lifewire), and it isn’t new in education. But as it is being talked about right now, I thought it might be a good time to take a closer look.
First, here are three posts and a video about Twitter basics: How to Use Twitter: Critical Tips for New Users from Wired.com WikiHow to Use Twitter and from Twitter itself, Getting Started with Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzDNEj1mJrg
As with all online sites and media, once you have a Twitter account, to protect yourself you MUST carefully look at your settings and privacy choices. Read about these at the online In the Twitter Support pages:
- Approving or denying follower requests
- About public and protected Tweets
- Protecting and unprotecting your Tweets
- Advanced options for using block
- Learn how to control your Twitter experience
- Unfollowing people on Twitter
- Muting accounts on Twitter
- Blocking accounts on Twitter
- Advanced muting options on Twitter
- Direct Messages
You can also find this information from your own Settings and Privacy page for your Twitter account. You should read through all this, and make your choices about what you want to see, and do not want to see, who can reach you through Twitter, etc. Access all this by clicking on the little circle with your avatar image, in the upper right corner of your Twitter page after you have logged in. You might also like to read this post on cnet.com about recent changes in Twitter’s privacy settings. Barbara Stefanics recently posted on this blog about how to “Check Your Twitter Settings”.
Do you know what you want to do with your Twitter account? Read this EducationWorld post, Using Twitter for Professional Development , this one at Talks with Teachers, Why Twitter Matters in Education, and this from November Learning, How Twitter Can Be Used as a Powerful Education Tool.
Now, you are logged in, you’ve checked through your settings, you have some ideas of what you want to use your Twitter account for, and you probably want to find Twitter users to “follow”. Here are some possibilities:
“Twitter” flickr photo by clasesdeperiodismo https://flickr.com/photos/esthervargasc /9775119174 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
The IB has several official Twitter accounts, and other folks have created IB centered Twitter accounts and lists:
The whole IB organization @iborganization
IB DP @IB_DP
IB MYP @ibmyp and the #myp #mypchat search results.
IB PYP @ibpyp and the #ibpyp search results
IB Examiners @IB_Examiners
IB World Magazine @IBWorldmag
@IBConnects PYP | MYP | DP International Baccalaureate Teaching Jobs Posted Daily. Connecting the World – One IB Teacher at a Time!
TOK Teachers is a public list by Larry Ferlazzo which collects tweets from the 23 TOK teachers listed on this page. (The tweets you read on the list page may or may not have anything to do with education.)
IB DP teachers is a public list of 31 teachers created by Ilja van Weringh
IB DP Geography Teachers is public list of 48 teachers created by Richard Allaway
There are many individual teachers tweeting, among them Brian Neises, MYP Workshop Leader & Field Rep; science and humanities teacher; @themypteacher; Paul O’Rourke, Lifelong Learner; IB-Middle Years Program Coordinator; debate/public speaking, soccer coach @Paul_Niagara
This search result for our OSC blog shows many posts with ideas for using Twitter in the IB classroom.
This coetail post, Twitter for the IBDP Student: While Twitter is an amazing tool for building community, microblogging understandings, and organically developing a real-time yearbook, there’s more to be done with everybody’s favorite blue bird by Tricia Friedman, offers a few ways to “tweet like a pro in the IBDP classroom”. The post includes this interesting TedEd video “Visualizing the world’s Twitter data” by Jer Thorp.(See the accompanying lesson on this web page.)
