eLearning Blog Dont Waste Your Time » Twitter

Searching Twitter

David Hopkins — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:38:08 +0000

So, it has come to this. I wanted to find some tweets I made a while ago; I can’t remember when but I can remember it was a re-tweet of someone else’s work.

I asked around last night on Twitter and had some good replies and these are a selection of the options I have found and been directed to. Thanks go out to the following for their quality replies and help in putting this list together;

And here comes the conundrum … do I keep clicking the ‘More’ button at the page of my latest tweets to go back and back through my tweets, or do I use another service to find what I’m after?

Enter the choices … some are for searching Twitter, others are to backup your Twitter data.

Twitter Search

Search Twitter with the proper and official search tool, but it won’t go back very far or take into account your messages or favourites (like other services do).

Tweetake

Using the Twitter API you can backup a variety of your own data, from followers, favorites, DMs, friends, tweets, or just plain everything!

SnapBird

Here you have the ability to search than just your own timeline; search messages you have received and sent, search someone else’s timeline (not just your own), someone else’s tweets as well as tweets that mention you. Oh, and it searched further back than the basic (or advanced) Twitter search.

TweetBackup

Backup a limited number of tweets (3,200, it’s still quite a few though), and al list of friends.

Google Site Search

This was a good one pointed out to me last night by @kiwicarol – enter a term like “site:twitter.com hopkinsdavid #BB9″ will search all of Google’s archive (as they have been archiving tweets for a while now) that contain my Twitter name and the hashtag #BB9. The results aren’t pretty and takes a while to get your eye in to visually filter out RTs and stuff, but still very useful.

I think I’m going to use SnapBird for the moment as, on the face of it, looks like it’ll give me more opportunity to search back through my timeline to find the links and posts I retweeted (and should’ve made a note of at the time!). I’ll let you know how I get on.

As always please share your experience of any of the above techniques or if I’ve missed on you like/hate, please tell us what and why.

All of a Twitter … how are social web tools used in University classrooms

David Hopkins — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:32:41 +0000

I am trying to steer clear of blog posts that keep talking about Twitter, and how we can use it in a classroom setting, but this one (from the University of New South Wales) is one of the better ones I’ve seen recently that have the academic staff talking about how they are using it.

“It is the very interactive nature of social web tools that academics are finding so useful in the classroom.”

“What you can do with the Web 2.0 … is that you can deliver material gradually and you can allow students to interact with your course materials in a very different way.”

“Those sorts of tools are really interesting because they plug in to the open web, which is what I’m really interested in; tools that allow us not to work in a walled-garden environment so much … but to work in the open world so that anyone can look at what we’re doing, if we wanted that, or we could restrict who the outsiders were, or we could invite outsiders in, or we could connect to anywhere on the web.”

Enjoy.

Many thanks to mbogle for showing this video.

“Finding a Place for Twitter in Higher Education” eLearn Magazine

David Hopkins — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:02:36 +0000

I received the email newsletter from eLearn Magazine earlier this week and was interested in the lead article: “Finding a Place for Twitter in Higher Education“.

The article makes some interesting points so please read the original on the link above, but I want to comment on just a couple of them;

“Twitter has various educational uses in both developing countries and more developed ones. But the real tipping point for Twitter in education will only come if teachers can manage to add Twitter to their arsenal of teaching tools. The question is can they do it?”

I would say “why would they do it” rather than “can they do it”. Surely it’s more about a considered and appropriate use of technology in the classroom rather than using it because we can?

“Despite these potential uses of Twitter in education, there are situations in which Twitter, as a medium falls short. The restricted number of characters used in a message, or tweet, limits users from explaining complex concepts or writing equations.”

Of course it falls short if you use Twitter and only Twitter; 140 characters is not designed to enable you to write a thesis or even short paragraph. I see many people (students and teachers) using Twitter as the feed in to their blog, or research profile, or Flickr account, or something similar. Indeed, you may be reading this because I tweeted from my blog when I publish(ed) this post.

“However, if you are a passionate teacher who wants to utilize new technologies in the classroom, Twitter can be an amazing, asynchronous communication medium — if and only if you have a strong network to follow.”

I don’t think Twitter warrants the label of “you must have a large network to follow and who follows you”. I think it is more appropriate that your network is appropriate to you and your subject or area of expertise.

If you have any comment on the above please let me know and let’s start the debate.

Presentation: Twitter is Dead (really?)

David Hopkins — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:22:26 +0000

I was not privileged enough to be able to attend this years eLearning Conference at the University of Plymouth, but have been following some of the conversations and sessions on Twitter thanks to the #pelc10 hashtag.

One presentation that really caught my eye is the ‘Twitter is Dead‘ from Tony McNeill. While it may have been the title that (shocked) interested me, the content is far more interesting – Tony shows the results of his activities with students who were asked to use Twitter for an element of their classroom activities.

Tony uses the tag line of ‘Reflections on student resistance to microblogging’ for the presentation, and that is what it is, reflection. It doesn’t constitute ‘research’ but it wouldn’t be too far to stretch the imagination that a full research paper on this would come up with very similar results.

Twitter Is Dead – View more presentations from Tony McNeill.

The interesting points, where the results are really put into perspective, are from about slide 41 onwards; the positive and negative views from the students on it’s merit as well as it’s failures.

I like the presentation, and think there is much that we, as educators and facilitators, can take from Tony’s ‘reflections’ with a view to working Twitter into the classroom activities and make it more mainstream.

Obviously, Twitter is not dead (yet) but to make sure this doesn’t happen is partly our responsibility; to ensure it is used appropriately with our students, and not just for the sake of integrating a fashionable technology.

What do you think?

Video: Life after Death by PowerPoint

David Hopkins — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:30:30 +0000

Many thanks to Tom Whitby for tweeting this video: Life after Death by PowerPoint

LiveBinder: Social Bookmarking and Knowledge Sharing

David Hopkins — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:49:52 +0000

I recently came across another example of social bookmarking that caught me eye – it’s called ‘LiveBinders’ and it’s very simple to use. Instead of saving the link to something like Delicious this lets you organise the link as a tab and you can see the content/link in the page – much as you would do with a file divider in a folder/binder.

What is LiveBinders?
Here’s a natty little overview video from the lovely people at LiveBinders:

What is LiveBinderIt?

How can I use LiveBinders?
LiveBinders is intended as a way for you to bookmark and showcase the page/work in the original manner the material was first published. The best way to quickly and easily use LiveBinders is to install the browser ‘bookmark tool‘ by dragging the widget to your taskbar – from here all you have to do is click this when you’re reading a page you want to save to your binder (or a new one) – much the same way my Delicious widget works!!

LiveBinders Cover
You don’t have to choose the thumbnail image as the ‘cover’ for the binder from the selection made out of the URLs you’ve saved/used – you can use the ‘insert media’ option under the ‘edit menu’ (for the binder you are currently viewing) and search Flickr images (yours or not) and use that as the binder cover.

Working Example(s)
You can link to a LiveBinders or embed it in your website or blog page. Here’s an example of one I’ve put together quickly for a demonstration:

Twitter Tips

Here is one put together by Innovative Tools, called “Web 2.0: Online Collaboration“, and it should look like the screen shot below:

Web 2.0: Online Collaboration

Summary
So, is it any good then? Yes it is, but it wont replace Delicious for me, but it is a really good way to showcase website content in the manor it was originally written and presented – excellent for a class project where many students are contributing content and reading materials (and images through the Flickr interface).

If the lovely bods at LiveBinders can sort the method and display on the embed option (I think the small thumbnail icon could be a little bigger and enabled to be more prominent on the web page.

I also had a few minor issues with one of my binders while I was preparing this, and Tina (or Barbara) was able to help through Twitter, in real time … marvellous, thanks girls!

This will be one application that is worth keeping an eye on, see where development and customer feedback take it.

Poll – Does the Twitter 'Follow Me' badge enhance my Blog?

David Hopkins — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:08:41 +0000

I’ve just installed the ‘Follow Me’ Twitter button on the blog to see if it makes any difference to you, the reader. It sits on the left-hand side of the blog, and does not scroll if you scroll down the page.

So, please vote in the poll below;

[poll id="2"]

Video: 140 Character Conference

David Hopkins — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:16:45 +0000

This is quite a good little video on “Why Teachers use Twitter” recorded at the 2009 140 Character Conference, with actual teachers talking about how they are using it for student and parent engagement.

The conference is all about;

“twitter as a platform and as a language we speak. Over time it will neither be the only platform nor the only language. #140conf is not an event about microblogging or the place where people share twitter “tips and techniques” but rather where we explore the effects of the emerging real-time Internet on Business.”

If only we could get something like this going here in the UK so we can share and learn from each other in the real-world; while it’s good to read about what someone else is doing, it’s no replacement for watching and talking to someone showing you what they do and the results they get.

Anyway, enjoy the video and if you’re interested in organising a UK #140confuk then let me know, I’ll be there!

Twitter & Education – #140conf LA

Adding Facebook and Twitter to student participation

David Hopkins — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:48:19 +0000

Students at Purdue University are experimenting with a new application developed at the school called Hotseat that integrates Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging to help students “backchannel” during class.

The idea behind this isn’t new; using social media in conferences allow participants to engage the speaker(s) to exchange ideas and questions on the fly.

The difference here is that Hotseat (expect a Trademark on this soon?) displays real-time comments from Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and MySpace. As reported on the Mashable website, over 70% of the 600 students in the pilot classes are using the channel.

Purdue University have produced this introductory video, have a look;

While the application enables student participation, the study goes on to note that the tutors need to be “resilient enough to take any potential criticism or even corrections from students in real-time”, but it is also a

“… valuable tool for enhancing learning. The students are engaged in the discussions and, for the most part, they are asking relevant questions.”

Nice, I like this. It reminds me of the PowerPoint Twitter Presentation from SAP Web 2.0 where you can include a live Twitter feed into your presentation based on hashtags or other Twitter methods.

I strongly urge you to download this and take a look through it … hell, even try it out. If you are presenting at any kind of event in the next few months it’s guaranteed there will be a #hashtag assigned to the event, so use it and use it well.

Twitter; for your Business

David Hopkins — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:39:11 +0000

OK. This is a slight detour for me as I use this blog to talk and reflect on as much as I can find that impacts the educational establishment.

This, however, is more about general business; it can be adapted to fit the business of education, but is not about how to use Twitter in Education (I’ve done this before, see the presentation).

I was asked recently, by a friend who is trying to encourage their employer to adopt new and interesting technologies for promotion / customer care / etc, to outline what Twitter is and how it can work for them.

Quite a bit of what I’ll go through below is also mentioned on my previous post: Twitter Tips: for Teachers & Educators

Here is a short list of what, how, why of ‘Twitter for Businesses’;

Begin:

Sign-up.
Choose a username that reflects the brand or company name.
Set you bio correctly (link, picture, etc)
Use Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, your product, your industry, etc

Using:

Self-promote on your own website, in email signatures, etc
Engage with users on Twitter
Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you
Re-tweet and share links to neat things in your community
Don’t apologise all the time. Be helpful instead
Be wary of over promoting yourself (pimping)
Talk about non-business work too
Be human

What next?

Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety
Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions
Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her
Tweet about other people’s stuff
When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc
Share the human side of your company

What else?

You don’t have to read every tweet
You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you
Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation
Use Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense
Desktop apps like Tweetdeck make it a lot easier to manage Twitter
If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it
Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like and all the variants
If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it
Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community

What can go wrong?

Twitter takes time
Twitter takes you away from other productive work
Without a reason or strategy, it’s just typing
There are other ways to do this
Twitter doesn’t replace customer good service
Twitter is just for techno-nerds
Twitter’s only a few million people (but growing)
Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing (but could do when more use it)
Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping (but can be managed in an open and frank manner)