Common Patterns of Participation on Twitter Gerhardt

Kirsten

Directions: Follow the postings of an educator using Twitter for a two week period, and then complete this handout. (Feel free to choose any educator using Twitter. Include his or her name, a direct link to his or her Twitter stream, and a short description of his or her professional work.) Name of educator : George ouros !gcouros "ackground : George is a di#ision principal of Inno#ating Teaching and $earning for %&'(), a speaker and consultant &ates of monitoring :*une +,-*une ./ Types of 0cti#ities 12ser#ed ( heck all that apply.) 3 'haring knowledge and resources 3 Tracking important conferences 3 Gathering instant feed2ack 1ther: Fre6uency of %osting 7 8 02out once a week 7 8 02out once a day =uestions to onsider 3 4onitoring educational news sources 3 5ncouraging reflection 3 4entoring colleagues

3 'e#eral times per day (.(-9: tweets;day<)

+. >hat trends do you notice in the patterns of participation for the educator that you?#e 2een monitoring@ Trends included sharing information a2out the I'T5 conference as it was in full swing during my monitoring time. Ae referenced a lot of speakers and called out to a lot of the people he was connecting with at the conference. Ae also shared a lot of resources with others. Ae is leading a school group that 2elongs to a particular twitter group. Ae consistently tagged them to send the group his new resources. .. 0re certain 2eha#iors more common than others@ 0re there certain 2eha#iors that seem more #alua2le to you than others@ >hich ones@ >hy@ The most #alua2le 2eha#iors to me were the tweets that he did regarding leadership. Ae tweeted many resources and links a2out what it takes to 2e a good leader. I opened many of his links and sa#ed a lot of his resources a2out good leaders as I consider going into leadership myself. The tweets that he did to particular people were not #alua2le to me, eBcept that if they were educators with similar interests, I started to follow them. :. &id you learn any lessons that will 2e #alua2le in your primary work while monitoring the Twitter stream of this educator@ >hat were they@ I learned that he tweeted a $1T< 1ne day he tweeted 9: times< I was a2le to 6uickly go through his tweets and only look at the tweets with links. If I liked the title or his recommendation, I opened the link. 4ost were #ery helpful. Aow did this information help you do your Co2 2etter or make your work easier@ I was a2le to retweet the info or links that I wanted to come 2ack to. I also learned to fa#orite items to tag and come 2ack to easily. I went to h is links and then sa#ed the url in my fa#orites if I really liked an article or felt like it would 2e something that I would use in the future. D. &id you learn any lessons a2out networking in social media spaces while monitoring the Twitter stream of this educator@ >hat were they@ I learned that you need to ! people when you are speaking directly to them. I also learned that you should acknowledge originators of resources that you retweet. I also learned that some people do a lot of tweeting and this is their main way to send and recei#e information a2out education. ,. >hat 6uestions a2out common patterns of communication on Twitter do you still ha#e@ I am wondering if the streams stay with you fore#er@@ 0lso, I am wondering if you can delete tweets. >hat eBcites you 0dapted from ommunicating and onnecting >ith 'ocial 4edia

a2out 2uilding your own network on Twitter@ The most eBciting thing a2out 2uilding a twitter network is that I will ha#e instant access to 6uality educational resources. It has not 2een #ery often that people post things that are not of great #alue in the education realm. I don?t feel like I will ha#e to take hours and hours to do research. There are #ery directed and specific searches you can do to get instant 6uality resources a2out E. Aow do you intend to 2uild on this learning eBperience@ >ill you study the Twitter streams of additional educators@ 0re you ready to start your own Twitter account@ I intend to continue to use twitter to connect with other educators. I will study the twitter streams of other educators as I feel you really get to know who your contacts are. Fou start to recogniGe who you may 2e a2le to get certain information and resources from, e#en though you don?t e#en know the people personally< I ha#e had the opportunity to get to many we2sites and find so much great information that I wasn?t e#en looking for. 5ach new person you study will 2ring new ideas and a new focus. I might e#en start sharing my own resources at some point<

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