Tweeting for Change

Tweeting for
Change
Beth Rajan Sockman Ph.D.
Patricia Green
John Scognamiglio

AECT - Jacksonville 2011

Questions
 What is Twitter?
 How is it used? Then… in Education?
 How can it be used to connect researchers and
practicing educators?

 What is the preliminary experience of using Twitter to
connect research to practicing educators?


What is Twitter
 Twitter is a social network, micro-blogging site, founded by
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in March 2006
(launched publicly in July 2006), that connects friends
through sharing short messages about the latest
information regarding what is interesting known as tweets.
 Each Tweet is 140 characters in length.
 Twitter is based in San Francisco, but it is used by people in nearly
every country in the world. It now comes in the following:
 English
 French
 German
 Italian
 Japanese
 Spanish

AECT - Jacksonville 2011 http://twitter.com/about

Essentials of Twitter Use
 Account - http://twitter.com/
 Follow people
 Retweet
 Subscribe to LISTS Hashtags - #
 Hootsuite


Twitter Overview - Use
 Businesses:
 Share information with people interested in products and services,
gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build
relationships with customers, partners and influential people.

 Social Change: “The instruments of social media are well suited
to making the existing social order more efficient” (Gladwell, 2010)
.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gl
adwell?currentPage=1
 Education: In classrooms – high school & college for classroom &
backchannel conversations – Large lecture
 Education - PLN – Personal Learning Network for educators


In Education:
PLN – Personal Learning Network
 Education – See Hashtag list
 What you do not see – researchers
 Myth in education: # hashtags change quickly

Hashtags in education do NOT
change very quickly.


Teacher Twitter Info
 Teachers Guide (K-3)
 Teacher – How to & Why (Shawn Urban)
 Blog – Advocating for Twitter – By Higher Ed- Tom
Whitby


Hashtag Tracking: Analytics
http://www.hashtracking.com

 #EDCHATHashTracking.com Report
 1,000 tweets generated 1,239,080 impressions, reaching an
audience of 776,280 followers within the past 24 hours

 COMPARE:

#edchat #edresearch #edtech


 Educational researchers and teachers do
Problem not regularly communicate, especially
outside of “class”.

Educational Researcher Teacher

The challenge many of us have faced is that researchers
often communicate in a language for other researchers,
and teachers don’t have the time or interest to read
lengthy research reports that may not be immediately usable.

Cathy Seeley (Using research to improve teaching.)

Connect Researcher with
Practitioners


Question:
What is the experience of
the first researcher in using
Twitter to connect research
with practitioners?


Method
 Grounded in an action research scenario (Stringer,
2007).

 First author has begun tweeting with the guidance of
the other authors – Feb. 2011

 Recorded and analyzed experience
 Desire:
 Connect with practitioners so that they may find research
valuable to inform practice.


THEMES


#1 Internal Resistance
(Gleicher’s formula):
Plumbing the depths of internal resistance allows
for continual use and growth.

 Felt very intimidated – new environment
 Moving very fast & didn’t want to add another thing to my
world (Twitter in Higher Education, 2010)

 Stars of Tweeting: Fear!
 Afraid I could never be as great as others…
 Shell Terrell - http://twitter.com/#!/shellterrell


Gleicher's Formula

DxVxF>R
D = Dissatisfaction with how things are now
V = Vision of what is possible
F = First, concrete steps that can be taken towards the
vision

If the product of these three factors is greater than
R = Resistance then change is possible.


Culture


#2 “How to Knowledge” (Rogers,
1995): Writing for the micro-
blogging environment requires
skill that needs to be cultivated.

Looked at links from Tweets
 WOW!Others tweeter were great because they were
pumping out very practical ideas.
 Not because they had professional looking materials:
 http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/blogs-i-recommend/


#3 Gaining “How to
Knowledge”: Using hashtags
and blogging to incorporate twitter
allows for valuable qualitative
information.
 Most tweets actually referred to other websites –
blogs, wikis or information

 Employing other social networking tools into Twitter
increases the tweeters’ voice.


Creating a page with a purpose
When setting up your twitter account use your real name and link
company related websites to your page. Design your page with
professionalism as your focus!

 Include your Brand Name(s) and/or Your Given Name.

 Pages must be well maintained and professional.

 Contains a balance of conversational and individual Tweets.
Twitter is about conversation.

 Include Multi-Media

 It is a good idea to put your Twitter page link in as many places
as you can so as many people as possible can find you on
Twitter.

 Highly effective twitter pages have backgrounds that reflect a
clean and professional image. Use an attractive background
graphic

 Be professional in your tweets. People follow you for a reason.

 Include your telephone number and email address as part of
your background

#4 Defining success: Success
and failure on Twitter differs from
traditional academic environments.

Beware: Many
companies will
follow you.

Building Twitter Presence
Before you begin…
Large Twitter Followers Success

The number of followers you have on Twitter does not mean you are popular or that people are
interested in what you have to say.

 What really counts is the number of conversations you are having. Are
people listening to you? Are people responding to what you are saying?

 Use Twitter to provide valuable information and buildpositive relationships

http://www.communityspark.com/a-beginners-guide-to-building-a-presence-on-twitter/


#5 MY PLN -Undiscovered
benefit: Benefit from the PLN
aspect in terms of evolving
technology
 NOW - Twitter using Hootsuite


Personal Conclusion
 Maintain Desire:get research out to motivated
practitioners

 Reward: my PLN
 Difficult: desirable followers
 Action Step: integrate with BLOG – get out the
work of graduate students on more research


Read – Can we connect?
 Dear Teacher Blog Post

Teachers/Administrators are encouraging other teachers
to be on twitter.

Would it be beneficial to be in the same place?


References
Formula for change. (2011, November 4). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_for_Change

Gladwell, M. (2010, October 10). Small change: Why revolution will not be tweeted. The New Yorker. Retrieved from
http://www.newyorker.com

Greenhow, C. (2009). Tapping the Wealth of Social Networks for Professional Development. Learning & Leading with
Technology, 36(8), 10-11. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Miller, S. (2010). Enhance Your Twitter Experience. Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(8), 14-17. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.

Seeley, K. (n.d.). Using research to improve teaching. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=908

Stringer, E. (2007). Action research Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Twitter in Higher Education 2010: Usage Habits and Trends of Today’s College Faculty. (2010). Faculty Focus.
http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/twitter-in-higher-education-2010-usage-habits-and-trends-of-todays-
college-faculty/

Young, J. R. (2010). Teaching with Twitter: Not for the Faint of Heart. Education Digest: Essential Readings
Condensed for Quick Review, 75(7), 9-12. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Young, J. R. (2009). 10 High Fliers on Twitter. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(31), A10. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.


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