Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!! Yes, I know that greeting is a few weeks late but technically aren’t you supposed to say that the first time you see someone you haven’t seen since the previous year? Isn’t that a required regulation mandated by the federal government for the entire month of January? By the time February rolls around the year is a month old and the countdown to summer vacation has started. So, since it is still January and I haven’t “seen” you since last year – Happy New Year!!!!!

Let’s talk about Social Media. Social Media isn’t just about keeping up with friends and family or stalking ex-high school sweethearts. Social Media is great for Professional Development and Life Long Learning. The three main Social Media platforms we will focus on in this series of installments are: Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Last night was the Grammy’s and my Twitter Feed was well, all a-twitter with live Grammy updates and quite frankly it was more interesting than the Grammy’s themselves. Twitter does provide for quick access to all things trivial, entertaining and viral; however, it can be a great source of useful professional information, as well. First, let’s look at the anatomy of a Tweet. Click here.

Tomorrow we will talk about Twitter Feeds you should follow in the name of Professional Development.

Shift 3 aka Hashtags

I watched Olympus Has Fallen this weekend. I know what you are thinking…who has time to watch an entire movie? However the movie actually led to this installment of PLNs. During the movie Gerard Butler’s character had to enter a code into a security computer. (I don’t want to give the movie away so I am trying to be as vague as possible.) Here is how the conversation went:

Ray Monroe: Hashtag.
Mike Banning: What?
Ray Monroe: Hashtag.
Lynn Jacobs: Shift 3!

How interesting. Mike Banning, of the President’s Secret Service Detail, did not know what a hashtag was. What’s more interesting is that Ray Monroe is of a generation that called a hashtag (#) the pound symbol. Hmmmm…………………..oh well, let’s not dwell on the fact that that could be an entire post all its own.

While knowing what a hashtag is was important to national security in this movie (which is well worth your time on a Saturday evening), it is also important when navigating Twitter. A hash tag is a way for people to search for tweets (posts) that have a common topic or to begin/join a conversation. For example, if you search  #LOST (or #Lost or #lost, because it's not case-sensitive), you'll get a list of tweets related to the TV show. What you won't get are tweets that say "I lost my debit card yesterday" because "lost" isn't preceded by the hash tag.

You can find people to follow by searching for conversations by hashtags and then clicking on their name.  Or you can view the graphic below.

This picture is taken from the Twitter help link. Since they are the experts, I thought I would let them explain it.

To actually follow someone, click on the follow button. It really is that simple.

Some Feeds that I follow are:

21stCenturyTch

TeachThought

LeadAndLearn

robertmarzano

Learningfy

Scholastic

teainfo

feedtheteacher

brainpop

TxPrincipalOrg

I feel like I am leaving you hanging…….tomorrow starts 31 Days of Google. We will come back to Twitter. There is SO much more I have to share with you. But, this Blog Challenge is important too. Take a Twitter Tour over the next 31 days while I dive into Google. Then in November we will come back to PLNs and Twitter. I hope that is ok with all of you. See you tomorrow with a Google Load of information.

--- IT Girl