Twitter: stay connected with your friends
Features and Uses
Answer the question: what are you doing now?
Discover what your friends are doing and saying--and who their friends are
Watch trends and news develop "in the moment" - e.g., trendistic, 5 more apps
Applications of Information Fluency
Real-time searching
Locating topical information and opinions
Locating friends, finding new ones and following them
Keeping informed about what's happening to your friends and vice versa
Evaluating the credibility of an author by his or her tweets and friends
Numerous Apps created for Twitter - interesting search resources, e.g. looking for keywords? Try Twitter Spectrum
Activities to try
Establish an account or log in (optional)
Search for a topic or user (go to sign in for search box)
Explore Twitter Aps for ways to manage information on Twitter
Try out a twitter search engine, e.g., Topsy.com, to see who's tweeting about what
Challenge: Use Topsy to find and evaluate the comments of tweeters for the following authors and organizations:
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martinlutherking.org (check out the descriptions of tweeps who favor the site, compared to those who oppose it)
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Lyle Zapato
Pay attention to the person who says the positive or negative thing. Why should that person's opinion count? What picture starts to form about who is for and who is against? What does this say about the subject being evaluated?
Think of other searches. Share them with others in the workshop.
Discuss: How could real-time search be useful in school? How can this tool be used to create a personal learning network? What difficulties might be encountered?