I know what you're thinking.. twitter. Oh, another "twit." I thought that, too. I figured twitter was for people that wanted to broadcast to the world what they were doing every second, "eating breakfast", "taking the dog for a walk, now the dog is..."
Well there are a lot of people that use twitter that way. That's okay we aren't going to "follow" those people!
Let's talk first about what a PLN is and then we'll get back to twitter. A PLN is a Personal or Professional Learning Network. With all of the Web 2.0 tools available, anyone can get on the internet and create their own PLN. Twitter is a great way to get started.
Twitter can be found at http://www.twitter.com/ Twitter is a microblog. It's simply a webpage that you customize with a username and as much or as little information about yourself as you want to provide. At the top of the page is a textbox. You can enter up to a 140 characters in the box to answer the question "What are you doing now?"
See the twitter help section for thorough details on getting started using twitter. http://help.twitter.com/home
Find twitter lingo at: http://twictionary.pbworks.com/
Using twitter for your Professional Learning Network is a great way to get started.
Go to twitter.com and create an account. You don't have to provide a bunch of personal information, if you don't want to. I would recommend not posting to twitter at all at first. Just use twitter to "follow" some of the experts. You might have noticed that many of your favorite websites or blogs have the small blue bird icon and say something like follow me on twitter.
Go to some of the expert blogs or organization websites that you visit and look for the icon. Click on it to go to their twitter profile. Click the "Login" link in the upper right corner and log in with your twitter username and password. After you log in, you will be taken back to the user's twitter profile and you'll see a "Follow" button directly under their photo. Click the Follow button and you'll see a yellow banner that says "You are now following ...."
Congratulations you've just increased your Personal Learning Network by one! Click the "Home" button in the white bar at the upper right corner of the page. You'll now see your twitter page. Any posts (known as tweets) the users you are following make will show up on your page. This is a great way to get the best ideas, tutorials, techniques, resources. Only Follow experts in your field. If you follow someone for a while and they don't post anything good or you don't like their post, you can always stop following them at anytime. You don't have to post anything yourself. Just use it to get great resources from your favorite experts. Just about everyone in the professional world has a twitter and is happy to have followers (it's like having groupies). It's the closest us geeks will ever get to having fans :).
A few tips for getting started:
1.) Create an account.
2.) Be very selective about who you choose to follow.
3.) Keep your account professional/ only follow professionals/ allow professionals to follow you.
4.) If you want to get personal or goofy with it, create a separate twitter account with a different
username and don't use the personal account on/ at your job.
5.) Don't post until you've observed posts of the experts for a while. You don't have to post at all
you know, that's okay. Your twitter is for professional learning, so don't post personal things,
only post professional ideas, resources, etc...
6.) You will have "spammers" and people trying to make money request to follow you. It's OKAY
and best if you decline their requests to follow you.
7.) Be even more selective about who you accept to follow you. If you feel bad delcining them.
You can always decline them and send them a direct message saying. I don't want anybody to
follow me. I just use twitter for resources and don't post.
Hope these tips help you find twitter as a valuable part of your learning network.
Want to follow me: http://twitter.com/bthat - I have to admit, I'm not that exciting. However I follow some exciting people. Just click the small "following" link under my profile information on the right to see the list of the experts, I follow. Click on any of them to see their profile. Review their postings to see if they'd be valuable for you to follow.
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