Twitter for a Newbe

Twitter, what is Twitter?  According to Wikipedia it is a social networking and microblogging system that people use to tweet to their followers what is happening around them or share important information in a 140 characters.  WOW!  You can get Twitter on your phone, your iPad, and your computer and I am sure there are other devices that you can use.Since I'm new to Twitter it has taken me some time to read what some of the tweets say and what the hash tag stands for, but by playing around on it I have found some very interesting people to follow.

One of those interesting people is Tony Vincent, @tonyvincent.  Tony started as a fifth grade teacher, worked his way to technology specialist and now has his own business helping teachers and students with technology.  The Tweet that caught my attention was his iPad app, Stick Around, to help students recall and review content from all of the core subjects.

LWB Another person I found to have a lot of knowledge about technology was Linda Braun, @lbraun2000.  One tweet I found interesting from Linda was the one on "College students likely to graduate w/o real-life research skills.  Librarians can help: http://bit:ly/1jgydsa via @yalsa".  The main point in this article was that college students don't know how to do an in depth search for a specific topic.  They are not using all the tools available to them, especially one very important one: the librarian.

Here is another fabulous person on Twitter.  She is The Daring Librarian, @GwynethJones.  Gwyneth has a blog page that she shares all her new and exciting tech ideas she has.  Her newest was using Vine App for the iPad to make short video clips of book reviews.  Her middle school students took a book and made a short clip of what the book was about. I really enjoyed how she tweeted about her cruise to Alaska.

Jim Lerman, @jimlerman, is another person I am following on Twitter.  He has many tweets concerning technology and others that are just fun.  I like the one on "Can you pass a US Citizenship test?"  I went there and yes I did pass!  He also has Into the Driver's Seat website that he post things that matter to him.

Kathy Schrock, @kathyschrock, is another technology guru that I will follow on Twitter, her websites and blogs.  She has a lot of information that will be very beneficial to me and the teachers I work with.  Her website iPads4teaching is very helpful.  This site has app links that can be used to assess students, create projects with the iPad, and many more apps to help teachers and students to become comfortable using the iPad for more than just games.



Getting on Twitter has helped me see a whole new world of social networking.  By following the right people you can learn many, many valuable ideas.  Just being on Twitter I found out that Reading Rainbow is an app on the iPad and that LeVar Burton raised 5 million dollars to get this program into 7,500 schools and classrooms.  Also, by following the tweets of Kathy Schrock, I now know where to go for help with the iPad and even found more information on the Chrome Notebooks that our school purchased.