Microblogging
Travelling the Twitterverse
Microblogging is the same as blogging but authors are limited to a set number of words or characters.
Twitter is probably the most famous example of microblogging, where authors can write just 140 characters
at a time.
What’s the point, you might ask? Well, it creates creativity with language as people strive to communicate
ideas, thoughts and humour in a short space.
Task 1: Using Twitter
a. Go to http://www.twitter.com. If you haven’t already signed up, please do so and create an account.
Remember to uncheck the box at the bottom of the page if you don’t want to get e-mails from
Twitter.
b. Go to Find People at the top of the page and type my name into the search box (Lindsay Warwick).
I should appear!
c. If you want to follow me and see what I am tweeting, click on Follow which is the first icon to the right
of my name and picture – it is a silhouette of a person with a plus sign on it.
d. Now click on my name or picture and you can see what I have been tweeting recently. I hope it isn’t
rude!!
e. Now, try to find some of your classmates and follow them.
f. Go to your homepage by clicking on Home (top right).
g. Write something under the box titled What’s happening. Remember, you only have 140 characters –
check the number on the top right of the text box as you type. When you have finished, press enter
and your tweet will be there for the world to see!
h. Not only will you see your tweet on your homepage but you will also start to see tweets created by
those people you are following. If you want to reply to a tweet, click on the Reply button (bottom
right of the tweet) and type in your message. BUT this can be read by anyone who is following the
person you are tweeting to. It is NOT private.
i. If you want to send a private message it is called a DM (direct message). You can do this by clicking
on Direct Messages in the right hand toolbar. Choose the person you want to tweet and write your
message.
j. If you want to add a link to another website (e.g. “Go to this great site for lesson plans.”) to your
tweet you can type it in as normal (http://www.onestopenglish.com) but it takes up a lot of characters
so there are websites which help you to reduce the size of your link. Go to the web page that you
want to insert into your tweet and copy the URL (highlight, right click, copy). Now go to tinyurl.com
and enter your URL into the top text box by right clicking inside it and clicking on paste. Click on
MakeTinyURL! A shorter link will now appear in the box below. Highlight it, right click and copy it.
Now go back to your tweet and paste it in (right click and paste).
k. If you receive a tweet that you think the people who follow you should read, you can ‘retweet’ it by
clicking on the Retweet icon (bottom right of tweet). You can add something to the message before
you send it.
l. If you want to tweet about a particular topic (e.g. the World Cup) and you want other people who are
also interested in this topic to read about it, you can do so with the use of a hash tag (#). Put a hash
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tag in front of the topic name, e.g. #worldcup. If you want to talk about a particular person that is a
member of twitter, you can add their name to your tweet but including an @ symbol before their
name. An example tweet might be “Well done @rafa4t. A fantastic win at #wimbledon.” When your
tweet is published, @rafa4t will become a link that people can click on to get to Rafa Nadal’s page,
and #wimbledon will become a link to all the other tweets about Wimbledon.
m. When lots of people tweet with a particular hash tag (e.g. #world cup), this is known as trending.
You can see trending topics on the right hand side of your page. Click on one, and you can see lots
of tweets with this hash tag. If you want to search for a particular topic, e.g. EFL, you can type this
into the Search box on the right of the page and tweets with #EFL will appear. You can save this
search if you are going to look at it regularly by clicking on Save this search at the top of the tweets.
n. To change your profile, add information about yourself, change the background/layout of your
homepage, go to Settings (top right toolbar).
N.B. Some useful people to follow for professional development:
Jim Scrivener, Russell Stannard, Nik Peachey, Gavin Dudeney, Jeremy Harmer, Scott Thornbury, Lindsay
Clanfield, Karenne Sylvester, ShellTerrell. Look at who they follow and follow those people yourself!
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Microblogging
How can we use Twitter in the classroom?
It is interesting that research shows young people tend not to use Twitter, preferring to use social networking
sites such as facebook. But perhaps that is a benefit as using Twitter in the classroom is not encroaching on
their personal lives.
Task 1: How can we use Twitter in the classroom?
In your groups, try to come up with five ideas of how to use this site for the classroom. AND more
importantly talk about how each idea would benefit the students’ language development.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Task 2: Let’s see if it works
In your groups, make sure that you are following each other on Twitter. Then, choose one of the ideas and
plan it in more detail, e.g. If you’re going to create a chain story, what first line will you use or will the
students make their own? Will there be one story or several? How would you know, e.g. will they be
numbered?
Decide how you are going to do it first and then act it out as if one of you were the teacher and the rest of
you are students.
When you have finished, discuss the following in your group:
a. Was it successful? Why/why not?
b. Did you enjoy it?
c. What issues would need to be considered when using it in class?
d. Would you use this with your class? Why/why not?
Now, share your experiences with the other groups in the class.
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Microblogging
How can we use Twitter as teachers?
Professional development
a. Follow those techies who share interesting web tools with the Twitterverse. It saves you time!
b. Follow those bloggers who share interesting ideas and tips for the classroom. You can use them in
class, share them with your followers and then share your own ideas/tips.
c. Ask questions about language, ideas for the classroom, books, materials etc. Help other teachers
with answers to their questions.
d. Share useful websites/materials with each other that can be used in class.
e. Share articles and educational news with each other.
f. Join a Twibe where you can chat to like-minded people (http://www.twibes.com/category/education).
g. Point people to your blog, website, book etc.
h. Keep up to date with your own language through practice and reading the tweets of native speakers.
With students
a. A chain story.
b. A (very!) short story.
c. A poem
d. Speak to students in different countries.
e. Write a Tweet as if they were a famous person/historical figure/character from a book. Get the
students tweeting as if they were experiencing an important day in their character’s lives.
f. Create a character and become this character, e.g. a doctor/a famous footballer etc. Tweet as if you
were him/her.
g. Student research information and then tweet the results.
h. Students write definitions and guess each other’s words.
i. Ask discussion questions: What would you do if? What do you think I should do? Etc.
j. Students follow a different expert/person of interest and report back to each other about what they
are tweeting. E.g. Barack Obama, Professor Stephen Hawking. Ask them questions and see if
they’ll answer.
k. Students follow news updates such as the BBC, Newscientist etc.
l. Student research information and put links to share with each other on Twitter.
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m. Students research interesting facts and share them. Students make up facts which are not true and
post them – vote to see who made the best fake fact!
Thanks to these sites for ideas for ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxIz_3o3O0
http://www.techlearning.com/article/20896
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_118cfb8msf8
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