Bannockburn School Tweet-along Week 7

I read this great article from the Huffington Post about abbreviations you should know. I had to read it to my husband because some of the abbreviations were just silly, others clever, and others I have been reading in tweets and posts and didn't know exactly what they were. I thought you might enjoy catching up on a few abbreviations you might see on Twitter. There are many more, and the education field has hundreds of acronyms and abbreviations to make everything more confusing. One of my favorite new acronyms is ICYMI or In Case You Missed It. Basically, it means a fun story went around and here it is again, ICYMI.

Here is the full article from the Huffington Post.

Hopefully this will keep you in the loop on what your kids are saying when they text, tweet, post and share.

Just for fun, here is a cute video called Teaching My Grandparents Acronyms. It's more texting than tweeting, but it's so cute.

Your task for this week is to try out an abbreviation or acronym in a tweet. Be sure to use the hashtag #106tweetalong so we can share in your hip genius.

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 5

This week we will look at other ways to share on Twitter.

Many apps have a share box (a box with an arrow pointing out of the top) that allow you to send items to other places. You might send to Facebook, or email, or Twitter. This is one of the great features of our mobile devices- sending things to each other. 

What might you want to send? Well, this week we practiced sharing pictures, please, keep sharing pictures, everyone loves to see them. You can also share a link from your browser app. I like to read my news using the AP News app. I can share news stories with the sharing box. 

Have you tried making a Vine video? With the Vine app you make short 7 second videos by pressing on the screen. You can stop pressing and move the device and start again. It's pretty fun. Then you synch your Vine app to your Twitter app by following the prompts and share it on Twitter. 

If you are working at your computer you can easily share as well. Many, many web pages have a feature to share to Twitter. Look around for the share feature when you're on the web.

This week your assignment is to share! Share things you see, or read or make. It can be pictures, or video, or articles or web pages. Be sure to adds the hashtag #106tweetalong! 

And please, keep sharing pictures! I love it!

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 6

Congratulations, we are now into Week 6 of the summer tweet-along. I hope you are learning something new, making connections and having some fun with twitter.

If you have not been following, remember, this is just for fun- no judgement! You can pick up wherever you are comfortable and join in.

This week we are going to ask a question.

Here is what you need to do:

 1. Choose a person or organization and think of a question you might want to ask.

 For example, I want to ask The Bookworm Gardens in Sheboygan, WI what will be featured in the area of the garden currently under construction.

2. Compose a new Tweet and ask your question.

This is how my tweet would look:

3. Use the @ handle of the person or organization so they are notified of the contact.  I used @bookwormgardens.

4. Add the #106tweetalong hashtag so we can follow along.

5. Send your tweet and share the response!

Mrs. Barnett has had great success with her students asking questions of experts all over the world. They tweet questions to zoos and museums and duck masters. I have found authors very responsive to tweets, too.

Have fun learning!

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 4

This week we are all about having some fun with Twitter. I would like you to post a picture each day of something you are doing. What projects have you taken on this summer? Where are you going? What are you reading? What is blooming in your yard? What did you make for dinner? Whatever it is, no matter how small, tweet a picture and the hashtag #106tweetalong so we can all follow along.

How do you tweet a picture?

From your Photos select the picture you would like to share. From the share box choose the blue Twitter bird. You may have to set up your account to connect Twitter and your photos, just follow the prompts and enter your account information. Add a description and the hashtag and you are all set.

Be sure to search on the #106tweetalong to see what everyone is tweeting!

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 3

We now have almost 50 people following along in our summer Tweet-along. I hope you are learning something new.

This week we are learning about HASHTAGS. What are those #hashtags all about? 

Here is a great website to learn more about hashtags and how to use them.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/08/what-is-a-hashtag.html

Hashtags are a way of indexing tweets so they are searchable. When writing a tweet 1-3 hashtags is usually a good number to use.

You can search a hashtag by clicking on it in a tweet, or by typing it into the search box in your twitter app.

For example, if you search for #bsd106 you will see all the tweets that teachers have created this year that might be of interest to the school community. Many teachers use their own classroom hashtag as well. Mrs. Barnett uses #1B106. Search that hashtag and you will find all of Mrs. Barnett's classroom tweets.

You can search our #106tweetalong hashtag to see who is tweeting.

Anyone can create a hashtag, but it is polite to search it first to make sure it's not in use by someone else if you plan to use it regularly for your own tweets.

Hashtags can also be used as a comment when saying something funny or clever, sort of an aside comment. For example @digiornopizza recently tweeted: pizza, wrestling, and pizza again #makesmehappy.

If you search #makesmehappy it is a collection of very random tweets about things that make people happy- it's not really a hashtag with a specific following. It is meant to be more of a comment.

On the other hand, #WorldCup2014 is a great way to follow posts from all over the world about the World Cup. You will see thousands of tweets with that hashtag. It's fun to follow one hashtag during an event to see what people are saying. That's the power of Twitter!

Your beginner task this week: explore hashtags. Go through your Twitter feed and click on a few hashtags to see what happens. Try the #bsd106 hashtag to see what we have been up to at school this year. 

Your advanced task this week: Save a search for your favorite hashtags so you can quickly return to the search and view the discussion. 

Power user task this week: Hashtags are used in real time for a group of people to "chat" about a topic. If you haven't already tried it, find a "chat" and follow the hashtags to see what is happening in the discussion. You can Google Twitter Chats and a topic you are interested in, i.e. running, politics, education, technology, and so on.Try using the Tweetchat.com web site to quickly and easily follow and participate in a chat.

Use those hashtags! 

 #106tweetalong

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 2

Welcome to week 2, we now have over 40 people on the Tweet-along! 

This week we are going to work on adding people to follow. 

If you are using Twitter from a computer you will see a box on your Twitter home page that says "Who to follow." Twitter will offer you suggestions based on your profile and other people you follow.

You can refresh this box and get new choices, or you can choose Find Friends and let Twitter have access to your address book to look for people you know with Twitter accounts. 

On your phone you want to go to your Twitter home page by opening the app and tapping the Me icon in the corner. At the top of your page you will see a head with a plus sign, tap this for suggestions and to find people. 

When you are reading your Twitter feed you can click/tap on the profile picture or name of a user and you will be taken to a Profile Summary. Here you can choose to Follow that user.

Your goal this week is to follow people! This is how you build your network. You can follow local friends, teachers, schools, stores, the Deerfield Review, plus famous people, sports teams- the list goes on and on. You can always use the search box to find someone or something you are looking for. We will get into searches more a little later.

If you are a little more advanced and you are following lots of users already, you might want to think about cleaning up your Following list and to Unfollow some that are no longer needed. Just click/tap on your Following list and then tap Unfollow.

If you are a Power User- consider making Lists of the users you Follow. You can read through the lists to see just what those users are sharing. For example, you can make a list of Bannockburn users and you will see only their tweets. It's a nice way to organize your tweets so you see like-minded tweets together.

To find lists while using the Twitter app on your phone go to the Me icon and then scroll down to the bottom. Go to Lists and you can use the + sign to create lists and organize the users you follow.

Let me know if you need help with anything!

Bannockburn Tweet-along Week 1

If you are a beginner, you need to set up a Twitter account. Included in this task is adding a photo of yourself (have your child take one of you outside), and filling out your profile with a description of who you are.

Here is a video to help you set up an account from the beginning with lots of explanation and detail. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXinxB7Mlk

Here is a shorter one that moves a little faster but is still from the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBeN3OOK6pE

When you are finished- send a tweet to let me know you are out there! Include #106tweetalong in your tweet. A hashtag is a way of indexing your tweets so they are searchable. We will explore it more later.

That is a lot to do for a beginner- probably the longest task you will receive. You can do it, and I'm here to help. 

If you are more advanced, your job this week is to watch for the #106tweetalong tweets and give our new users encouragement for their accomplishment!