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When you first start using Twitter, it may seem like a pretty simple tool. After all,
how difficult can a tool be that only uses 140 characters? But once you start to look
at the Twitter interface, it may seem a bit daunting and I totally understand how that
feels so this quick video is just going to orient new users to what the Twitter site
consists of.
Right now I'm at Twitter.com and I'm logged into my own account and I know that because
in the upper left corner I can see my profile image and my name. And I'm on my Home Page
and I know that because in the upper left corner the blue little "Home" icon is highlighted
in the upper left corner. The first thing I want to show you is if I click on my name,
it's going to go to my Profile page. So let's do that.
And this is what your profile page looks like. From this page you will see your Twitter username
or your Twitter handle and that's what appears under your name. And this is really critical
because that's what other users will use to find you on Twitter or to send Tweets to you.
And this is your description about you that you really should customize. It will help
you understand what your interests are and that will ensure that other people with like
interests will be able to follow you and it helps to customize your network on Twitter.
If you want to edit your profile, click the button on the right, "Edit your profile."
Down below you'll see the list of Tweets that you have sent. Over on the left you can click
on these tabs to click on to view the users that you are following, as well as see who
is following you, Tweets you have favorited, lists you have set up which is kind of like
a Twitter group. They are ways you can organize groups of twitter users. And it will also
showcase images you have shared on Twitter recently. Twitter will also use the information
from those you've followed and use that information to recommend Twitter users that are similar
to you. So these are folks that you might want to check out and also follow.
So, let's go back to the home page and click on home in the upper left corner. Your homepage
displays your Twitter feed which is what I see over here on the right under the word
"Tweets." Now if you aren't following anyone yet, you're probably not going to see anything
there because what comes into your Twitter feed or in the Tweets column are Tweets sent
by those you follow. And remember, you want to find people with interests like your own.
And remember, Twitter users don't have to be people they can be professional organizations
that you can glean very important information from -- they can be professional figures,
people just like you, other teachers. There are lots of ways you can find Twitter users
that could be resources to you.
But those are the Tweets that appear here in the feed and so this is always changing.
And it changes very quickly, depending on the number of users you are following. So
that is the homepage -- oh, let me point out one more thing. If I want to send a Tweet,
I would go here in the left column and just type it here in the box. So I could type something
like, [typing: How are things going this week, #BOCSM?] ... Now you're noticing that I'm
using the hashtag for our course here. All you need to do is type that anywhere in the
Tweet, #BOCSM. It does not have to be capitalized. And if that appears in the Tweet, it will
appears in searches for our hashtag and I'll explain that in a moment.
When you send a Tweet, it has to be 140 characters or less and Twitter will always show you at
the bottom here next to the Tweet button how many characters you have left. If you have
a link you'd like to share -- to a video, a website, a blog post, etc. -- you just go
ahead and paste that link after whatever it is you want to say about that resource and
Twitter will condense it down and make it a little shorter. And once you are done, you
just click Tweet. My Tweet has been sent.
So going back up to the top, oh, and by the way, here you see it, here in my Tweets, right?
I'm going to click on the @Connect tab. And what you see here are references that have
been made to my username in different Tweets. So on the left here there are two types of
Tweets that get filtered into the @Conect page. There are Interactions and Mentions.
These are the Interactions which are references back to me or forwards of Tweets that I've
sent. And Mentions are simply my username included anywhere in the Tweet. So that's
something that I do reference to see who is referencing me, who I'm having interactions
with. I actually have this information tied to my iPhone. So I receive a text message
each time I receive a mention on Twitter and that's a really quick and easy way for me
to reply and say, "Thanks for the mention." That's really good etiquette to use on Twitter.
You always have the option to tie your mobile phone to Twitter as much or as little as you
want and you can read more about that in the support area, I'm not going to get into that
here.
So let's click on the Discover tab at the top. So in Discover is where you can basically
dig into the content in Twitter. Over under Stories this is where Twitter is going to
start extracting content from Twitter and share it with you. I generally don't pay much
attention to this because I'm seeking very specific information and I leverage my own
network to look for what it is that I'm seeking. But what you might want to do is use the Who
to Follow feature here in Discover to look for folks. If there is someone you know who
is using Twitter and you want to find them, for example. You can find friends and you
can browse categories. So I could browse Education and here's a whole bunch of Education resources
I could follow. Another important thing to know is that this is where you would search
for hashtags. So if I'm on Twitter.com and I want to see what's going on with our #BOCSM
hashtag, all I would do is click on the Discover tab and then enter #BOCSM and click the little
search icon. And here are all of the recent Tweets that have come through with our hashtag.
And there is the one that I sent out most recently. And you will also notice that these
Tweets have been pulled together and they appear in our Moodle course. I've done that
using a Twitter search widget. You'll find a video explaining how to do that in Week
2 of our class in our Ning network.
So I hope that this is helpful and it provides some helpful information about how to get
oriented and started with Twitter. I know it's a lot to take in but hopefully that's
a good general overview and I wish you all much luck and success.