Twittering Teachers

Do you tweet? A tweet is a 140 character message you can send in your twitter account to your followers. You have the option of allowing anyone to follow you or you can choose to approve your followers. You can also follow other tweeters. You simply search for tweeters by name or company, or click "follow me" from their websites. You can link your followers to different websites, retweet messages, and send private messages. You can join chats or follow trends. What you tweet and how much you tweet is up to you. Tweeting is a fun, efficient, and quick way to share information. You can even tweet from your phone!

Who Should You Follow?

In general, you can follow anyone you choose. You might follow people you know personally, companies or websites you frequent, politicians you back, movie stars you enjoy, people or companies with something in common (like education), organizations you belong to, authors you read, or any other personal or professional interest. As a teacher, I follow educators, authors, publishers, and educational organizations or websites. I also follow Macy's to get the latest coupon!

What Should You Tweet?

It's up to you, but I recommend tweeting useful or interesting information. No one wants to read a dozen tweets about your morning coffee and the laundry pile. Read my top ten tweets ideas:

1. Inspirational Quotes - A positive thought goes a long way to help someone through a tough day.

2. Recommended Books - I like to share favorite children's books, young adult books, professional books, and an occasional adult book.

3. News Articles - If I find a news article, video, or blog post that I think my followers would enjoy I will send it as a tweet.

4. Website / Product Updates - If you have a website, create products, or write books or articles, then tweeting is a must. You can tweet updates to your followers.

5. Education News - If I get wind of something in education that I think is important I'll share it by tweeting or retweeting the information.

6. Retweets - I follow top educators, education companies, authors, and education organizations. Sometimes they tweet something worth retweeting to my followers.

7. Freebies - If I create a free resource or find one, I'm more than happy to let my followers know about it.

8. Great Websites - If I find or know of a great website that would be beneficial to my followers, I'll tweet a link.

9. Awesome Sale or Coupon - I don't tweet sales or coupons often, but if I find one worth passing on, I send it out.

10. Education Conference News - Tweeters who attended NCTE lit up the tweet boards with news and information from the conference (for the rest of us poor souls who didn't get to go).

Tweeting is a powerful tool for sending and receiving information fast.

Follow me @teachingfriends