I am sure you are noticing as you follow your Twitter feeds, there is a whole new language out there in Twitterland (Tweetsville? Twittersphere? ...) Today I wanted to share some information on two twitter conventions that you have undoubtably come across.
One is the use of @mentions. When you notice an @sign followed by a Twitter name, it means that the sender is mentioning another Tweeter. Reasons for including another Tweeter in a Tweet are varied. Here are a few:
· Sometimes the message is a RT (re-tweet). A Re-tweet means that someone sent out a Tweet to their followers and one of their followers liked it so much they re-tweeted it to their own followers. Re-Tweeting is generally considered a compliment.
· Sometimes an @mention is used to respond to something someone else has tweeted.
· Sometimes an @mention is used when citing a great blog post, book or link to someone's web site
You can check in your own profile to see if anyone is mentioning you and you can check into other people’s profiles to see who is mentioning them. This is not merely being snoopy. It can help you to build up your list of people that you are interested in following.
The second is the use of #Hashtags. When you notice a #sign followed by a string of letters or words, it is referring to a group. There are many, many groups in Twitter – too numerous to mention. A couple that you might be interested in following are #edchat (educational chat) and #cpchat (Connected Principals chat). There is no formal Hashtag registry and there are no hoops to jump through to set up a hashtag. You just do a little background search to make sure that it is not already being used by someone else, let your followers about the hashtag and then begin using it. Amy Gahran has some good tips here: http://www.contentious.com/2008/11/20/how-to-start-a-twitter-event-hashtag/
It is becoming increasingly more common for conferences to use hashtags to share conference learning before, during and after the event. Some examples are:
· International Society for Technology in Education Annual Conference held in Philadelphia this summer #iste11
· Canadian Association of School Administrators Summer Conference held in Niagara Falls #casa11
· Universal Designs for Learning Conference happening August 22& 23, 2011 (right now) in Edmonton #abudl2011
· Using the Daily Five in Your Classroom #daily5
Here is one more good article on Hashtags by Kathleen Morris: http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/06/30/all-abouttwitter-hashtags/
We are planning on using the hashtag #hs4 for news that is intended for Holy Spirit School Division public announcements. You could even set up a hashtag for your school community. More to come on that, later.
Watch for my Twitter4 message coming very soon where I will talk a bit about Scheduled Chats, Twitter Feed Readers such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite as well as shortening URLs.
Images by Gopal Raju (http://www.productivedreams.com)
It is becoming increasingly more common for conferences to use hashtags to share conference learning before, during and after the event. Some examples are:
· International Society for Technology in Education Annual Conference held in Philadelphia this summer #iste11
· Canadian Association of School Administrators Summer Conference held in Niagara Falls #casa11
· Universal Designs for Learning Conference happening August 22& 23, 2011 (right now) in Edmonton #abudl2011
· Using the Daily Five in Your Classroom #daily5
Here is one more good article on Hashtags by Kathleen Morris: http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/06/30/all-abouttwitter-hashtags/
We are planning on using the hashtag #hs4 for news that is intended for Holy Spirit School Division public announcements. You could even set up a hashtag for your school community. More to come on that, later.
Watch for my Twitter4 message coming very soon where I will talk a bit about Scheduled Chats, Twitter Feed Readers such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite as well as shortening URLs.
Images by Gopal Raju (http://www.productivedreams.com)
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