Using Twitter

When I was first introduced to Twitter, I thought of it as nothing more than a shortened Facebook status. Why would I want to use technology to let the world know that I "Just watered my plants #greenthumb #gardeninthemaking" or why would I want to "shoutout @EllenDegeneres put me on your show!!!"? Who really thinks they are so important that the world needs to know everything they do?

But in the last year I have realized that just because some people use Twitter for tweeting celebrities pointless messages or filling everyone in on their boring day, that doesn't mean that how Twitter should be used. Twitter can be used for all kinds of things!

This summer, I worked for the Manitoba Youth Job Centre, setting up odd jobs for youth and helping them with resumes, as well as the job hunt and interview processes. Part of my job included advertising that the centre was open for the summer, and letting people know about the events we had planned for our Odd Job Squad.

We had a pretty limited budget and were asked to be creative with how we used it, so my work partner and I set out to make connections in our city. We met with politicians, radio stations, and other well-known business people in Brandon and let them know about our services. Then we added them all on Twitter and got to work!

I spent quite a bit of time on Twitter this summer promoting events, tweeting the radio stations and asking them to stop by our BBQ's, and generally getting the word out. We found that Twitter was by far our most successful way to contact people in Brandon, and it didn't take long for followers to retweet our events and do some of the work for us! It was amazing to see how well Twitter worked in this way.

I believe that Twitter can also be an asset to Education. Last year I started following John Evans, a retired teacher and Web Tech Consultant who came and spoke to our class about education and technology.  He tweets out some fantastic resources for teachers, and I have retweeted him quite a bit. 

Twitter is a place where people can voice their opinions and link it to articles about education. There are so many great articles out there, and it's possible to have a conversation on Twitter about it. I've watched some great chats go on, but have not yet joined in, so I think this semester I'll be joining in on an EdChat or two.

Another great person I've been following is Joy Kestern, who is a teacher in California, but also an online coding teacher at Treehouse, which is something my husband introduced me to. While I still have no idea how to code and have never even tried, Joy suggests that it is something we can and should begin teaching our students at a young age. Here's a video of her introducing a new course on Treehouse:

and in case you're wanting to sign up for Treehouse and learn how to code... use this link:
referrals.trhou.se/garyjennings 

Anyway! All that to say Twitter is awesome, and I look forward to using it more this semester with this course, as well as in my future teaching career.