Library Media Tech Talk

Twitter never ceases to amaze me. In August, my wife and I were enjoying a Saturday clothes shopping trip. I remember we were in JCPenney picking out our new school clothes. (This is an annual pilgrimage for us every August.) At some point during that shopping session, I received a Tweet from Leigh Morris. As I recall, she was asking me about Breakout EDU. When I looked at her Twitter profile and realized she was a teacher in Cape Town, South Africa, I immediately followed her and told her I would love to connect our learning communities together this year. It was a delightful visit via my iPhone Twitter app as I followed my wife around the store. It was easy to tell that Leigh was a passionate teacher, and I was so glad she reached out to me! These are the motivated educators I consistently encounter on Twitter. Skype Antics If you have been watching this blog and my social media, you know I love connecting our students and teachers via Skype. Recently, we have been experimen...

Six Ways To Build Your PLN Using Twitter Since becoming active on Twitter over the past year and a half, I have noticed some best practices that users with a large following seem to have in common. There are many benefits to having a larger professional personal learning network (PLN). More connections equals more information coming across your Twitter feed. One of the most life changing benefits is that if you follow inspiring and innovative educators, many of them will follow you back. This always leads to powerful idea sharing and sometimes even collaboration! Using Twitter in this way will also allow you to build an audience for your library program (or classroom, niche, etc). This is an asset to your organization, especially if you are sharing your best practices. Before you can attract followers in your profession, be sure to have a photo of yourself on your Twitter account. In addition, complete your biographical information. It has also been recommended to me (by one of my ...

Why I Will Include Twitter Analytics To Our Library Statistical Reports I have been making an effort to be more active on Twitter since the summer of 2014. In that time, the benefit has been a phenomenal growth in my Professional Learning Network (PLN). The largest growth has taken place during the participation in Twitter education chats . It has been wonderful to connect with educators all over the country and world on a consistent basis. The use of Twitter has also driven substantial traffic to this library blog. A blog is an important advocacy tool for libraries since it is a record of our journey. Twitter is also a great advocacy tool because it allows your followers to see snapshots of what you are doing, 140 characters at at time. If you use hashtags that school librarians check frequently, your work will be seen around the country. A few common school library hashtags: #tlchat (Teacher Librarian Chat) #txlchat (Texas Librarian Chat) #mwlibchat (Midwest Teacher Librarian...

In the most recent blog entry , I discussed some of the ways we support teachers in the library by helping them present research tools. Recently, I've been trying to work in social media whenever possible. Students are presently using social media to post selfies and brag about themselves. In recent months, I have discovered that these great social tools can be used for so much more . We should strive to model better ways to use social media in the classroom! Two weeks ago, I was showing an 8th grade English class how to do basic research using Britannica School.  I also taught a brief introduction to EasyBib . After I had taught a few sessions, I thought about bringing Twitter into the lesson. I decided to take one of the photos we had captured (we always take lots of photos of events in the library for evidence!) and send out a Tweet to share what we were doing. I sent the first Tweet about Britannica School  and EasyBib after I got home from school that evening. ...

Still puzzled by Twitter? I know I'm still learning about this great social media tool too! If you didn't catch the first part of this post, go here . I'll cover what I've learned about Hashtags and Twitter chats in this post. What is a Hashtag anyway ? When I first started using Twitter, I couldn't figure out how to find people to follow. I didn't know how to find Tweets about the topics that interested me. Hashtags helped me find these items! A Hashtag  is a keyword or phrase (no spaces) with a "#" at the beginning. The keyword or phrase helps categorize the Tweet. These words can be anything from #edchat (a popular education hashtag) to #bestmemoriesof2014 (a popular hashtag at the end of 2014).  You can search a specific hashtag by going to the "search Twitter" tool and typing it in. Twitter will then show you the current Tweets and photos posted to that hashtag. You can get a list of Educational Hashtags here  (thanks ...

If you are interested in collaborating with colleagues across the country (and world), consider using Twitter more in 2015! I created a Twitter account in July 2011. I didn't really start using Twitter as an effective networking tool until the summer of 2014. I'm not an expert, but I do know more now than when I started.  What are the benefits? Skeptical about how you can use Twitter? In the short months that I have used Twitter as a Personal Learning Network (PLN) tool, I have connected with hundreds of teacher librarians, teachers, and administrators across the country. My Twitter followers have increased from around 140 back in the summer of 2014 to 841 as of December 2014. I have learned a lot about emerging technology (such as 3D Printing and how school libraries are starting to use it). Because I have an ever growing PLN on Twitter, more people are reading this blog since I use Twitter to tweet out my links to new blog posts. I see numerous excellent dai...