<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page One of the main attractions about twitter is the informal educational discussions that can flare up! Sometimes it starts with an innocent question or it can be sparked by a topical issue that someone is experiencing. Sometimes we try to orchestrate a topic of discussion (this could be a good thing to do in a classroom situation).
Most of the time, however, it happens organically as I found this morning when I was just about to conjure up a topic for discussion for our unworkshop! @Lohann asked the question: How do you overcome restrictions on the use of cellphones in schools?" Which of course got me going (and please get stuck into this discussion as well, using the context that you find ourself in). This is a relevant barrier if we are thinking of implementing twitter as a classroom tool and I would love to hear what the situation is in classrooms around our country and globally!
How do you become part of a twitter discussion?
To be part of a discussion, or to just talk to someone, you will need to REPLY to the tweet that inspires you to become involved. You do this by hovering your cursor over the tweet, which will then display the reply option below the tweet (see picture above). If you click on this, it will open a little window with the person's name to who you want to reply, already inserted. You will notice that it has @thepersonsname inserted. You can now just type in your reply.
To reply to someone specific, you use the @ symbol. This has to be placed directly in front of their twitter name. E.g if you want to talk to me, you will start your tweet with @maggiev. If you put @ maggiev, I will not see your tweet directed at me due to the space between the @ and maggiev. You will find the discussion directed at you under the Connect link--> Mentions.
You must remember to check your Mentions REGULARLY and reply to discussions. Ignoring the Mentions tab means that you are in effect ignoring people talking to you!
Your Connect link does not only include reply's to your discussions, it also shows what people are saying about you! The Interactions tab will show you your mentions as well as your tweets that has been retweeted by others (in other words passing on one of your tweets) and who has started t follow you.
Even if you do not follow your timeline's tweets, you should always keep an eye on the Connect stream. I have set up my mobile phone in such a way that it gives a beep similar to my SMS sound every time a receive a "Mention". Twitter Replies can therefore substitute using sms's which is far more expensive, to contact people and have discussions with them! As we have pointed out in day 4 you will be able to read twitter discussions in a chronological way by clicking on the discussion call-out icon to the right of a tweet. The discussion will show up on the right of your twitter page. Classroom, workshop or event discussions Apart from informal discussions, we can group discussions together by using hashtags (e.g ict4champions) . We will discuss hashtags in more detail tomorrow, but I just need to mention how important it is to keep track of discussions taking place in the same space (not necessarily a physical space). By inserting a hashtag you can keep track of various little discussions around the same topic or interest. In the case of this unworkshop we are using #ict4champions to bring everything together. So if you do not insert this tag and I am not following you, I will miss out on what you are saying. Replying to other people's tweets is a good way to build learning relationships. By talking to others, they will get to know you and may even start following you! So in summary:
- Look at your Mentions to see if someone is talking to you. (Home-->Mentions)
- Hover over tweet--> click on Reply to answer (you can reply to anyone' s tweet in your main timeline stream as well)
- Type in your reply in presented window next to the @theotherpersonsname
- Dont forget to add #ict4champions in your tweet before you send it
- Respond to the question posed by @lohann (click on the question to remind you what she has asked)
- Check your timeline and reply to anyone of the tweets that interest you. (Home-->timeline)
- Check the #ict4champions stream and reply to any of the tweets there.
- Don't forget to add #ict4champions to every one of your tweets so that we can track you!
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