Can

Make You a Better Teacher?

I asked the teachers in my Twitter Network:

U.S.

U.A.E.

Thailand

U.K.

Australia

Norway

They answered . . .

Turkey

Denmark

Germany

Japan

Canada

U.K.

Brazil

. . . and answered . . .

U.S.

U.K.

S. Korea

Australia

U.S.

Japan

U.K.

. . . and answered!

Twitter is like having a 24 hour, global personal learning network.

Baby Steps

If you can text, you can tweet!

Create a free account at twitter.com

Choose a short username

Never share

your password

Unless you use Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL, skip this step

Skip Twitter’s suggestions too. You can do better.

Create your profile

Use a real photo

Tell people about yourself—write a short bio

Include key words like ‘teacher’ ‘teach’ ‘children’

‘EFL’ and ‘Japan’

You’ll meet more

people if you don’t

protect your tweets

How do you find people to follow?

Use a Twitter list likehttp://twitter.com/barbsaka/starter-pln

You can “follow” everyone with one click

Or pick and choose folks

to follow

Ready to start?

Check your followers. Block anyone who looks suspicious--0 followers, 0 tweets, following 1000 people. (No one knows if you block them.)

The Internet is forever. If you wouldn’t want your mother to read it, don’t post it.

Protect yourself from spam.

--Avoid Twitter games and activities that ask for your password.

--Never click on links in direct messages. (unless you know and trust the person)

Learn the local languageRT=Retweet

When a tweet is good enough that you want

to share it with your network.

Short links.You only get 140 characters. Total.

# + tagHashtags are

like labels. They help you

search by keywords and

join conversations.

2 types of tweets

@barbsaka (a public message or reply—everyone sees it)

D barbsaka (a “direct” message—only I see it)

NOW you’re ready to go!

What can you do on Twitter, anyway?

Find teaching resources

Practice other languages

Get lesson ideas

Find pictures for flash cards

Find new ideas for teaching

Discover interesting blogs . . .

. . . and know when they have been updated.

What about tags? How do they help?

Find a community of EFL teachers

#EFL

Join a weekly discussion with teachers from around the world.

#ELTchat

Follow your professional organization, or follow a conference.

#jaltorg #jalt2009

Organization is the key

Filter information coming in

Tag information going out

Use tools like Twitter lists or Tweetdeck to organize messages.

One column?

Not so useful.

Lists?Better.

Groups make it easy to filter information

Use the button to create groups

Tags make it easy to organize your bookmarks, and to find them again later.

Social bookmarks are online instead of on your computer.

Social = SharedBookmarks = Links

Online = Always available

Twitter can make you a better teacher because it’s the easiest

way to build a powerful personal learning network.

• live connection to teachers around the world 24 hours a day

• tools, websites, blogs, and articles come with personal recommendations

• collaboration and sharing made simple

• like having a teaching conference at your fingertips

Come on, join the conversation!

Visit

http://teachingvillage.wikispaces.com

• download this slideshow

• get links to the websites mentioned

• get more information about developing a personal learning network