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Dr. Trisha Craig [email protected] @WheelockSpore
Executive Director, Wheelock College Singapore
*USE TWITTER
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Why Tweet? ?
*Communicate with the parents of your students with more frequency
*Create and maintain a community of teachers
*Establish your own professional identity or brand
*What is a Tweet?
*140 characters but stick to 120 to allow ‘re-tweeting’
*May include links to articles, photos or videos OR just a sentence.
*Links will use up some of your character allotment
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Getting Started on Twitter
*Set up an account at https://twitter.com/
*Pick a name that is professional and descriptive: MissJoansK1 or TeacherDinahsClass
*Keep your professional and personal twitter accounts separate
*Find sites to follow: @WheelockSpore and @LastBackpack When you follow people, you will get their tweets. When people follow you, they will get your tweets.
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Sending a Tweet ...
*To send a tweet, begin by clicking the compose icon:
*You could say, for example: At #ECDA Early Childhood Conference 2013. Inspired by so many fellow teachers!
*You would have 62 characters left.
*Using a hashtag (#) is a way of tagging your post so that other people can find it by searching on that term. Really popular terms ‘trend’.
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Adding content to tweets
*Perhaps you want to add a photo to your tweet. Use the camera icon to upload a picture. This will reduce your remaining characters.
*Maybe there is an article that you like and want to tweet the link: http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/embrace-right-tech-early-years But that is too long!
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Shortening a link so you can tweet
it
*There are websites that will shorten the link for you and you simply copy the new link.
*www.Bitly.com or www.Tinyurl.com
*Now you can tweet it: http://bit.ly/15yQCaO or http://tinyurl.com/l2atxbr It goes from 68 characters to around 25.
*A good tweet would let your followers know what it is and that you think this is worth reading:
*Here's an article on technology in the ECE classroom: http://tinyurl.com/l2atxbr by @WheelockSpore and @lastbackpack And you still have 27 characters left!
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Re-Tweeting
*You’ve seen a tweet you think others would appreciate and you want to send it. It’s the same concept as forwarding an email.
*You can use the Retweet button to send it to your followers:
*Or if you want to add a comment, copy the tweet and add RT and the original username so people know it’s not your content:
*Love these books! RT @PublicLibrarySG 7 Obscure Children’s Books by Famous “Adult” Lit Authors http://bit.ly/oXD8MY
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Examples of Tweets:
Communicating with parents
*Tweet pictures of your classroom to parents before the school year starts so they can show it to children and help them feel familiar: Looking forward to meeting my new N1 students on Monday!
*Describe a new module you’re planning and ask for parents’ help: We’re running a restaurant this week! Pls send in photo of your family's favourite dish so we can add it to the menu.
*Celebrate an achievement: So proud that everyone is learning to share. #developmentalmilestone
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Take precautions for privacy and
safety
*Remember, Twitter is a public platform. Exercise common sense:*Take photos in such a way that don’t show
children’s faces. Show their work or compose the shot to obscure faces
*If you are taking the children on a field trip, don’t tweet the location prior to the trip, talk about it afterwards.
*Establish Centre practices and community norms.
*Don’t criticize children, colleagues or workplace
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Examples of Tweets: Creating
a professional network
* In the broader scheme of Singapore, preschool teachers must help raise the profession’s image – Become informed! Comment and tweet about the news and opinion. Look at the Straits Times or Today Online. Stories online have a tweet icon Use this to send a story out to your network
*Set up a Google Alert: http://www.google.com.sg/alerts You will get an email and link to stories that contain the alert such as Singapore preschool. Then you can tweet any stories that you think are of interest.
*Use Twitter to find information to help your practice: for example, see what happens when you search twitter for best preschool apps.
© Trisha Craig 2013
*Examples of Tweets:
Establishing your own professional
identity
* If there is an area you are especially interested in, you can establish yourself and your own brand with that in mind.
*https://twitter.com/Teach_Preschool
*@LisaGuernsey
*You establish your credibility and authority by providing an interesting voice and pointing people to worthwhile sites. In essence, you become a curator of information.
© Trisha Craig 2013
*People/places you might want to
follow
*PublicLibrarySG @PublicLibrarySG
*MOE Singapore @MOEsg
*MSF @MSFSingapore
*Lee Hsien Loong @leehsienloong
*Education.com @preschoolers (US site but lots of interesting links to downloadables)
© Trisha Craig 2013
*We have an opportunity to move the ECE field in Singapore forward through networking
*Is there twitter content you would like?
*What would be most useful:
*Ideas from peers about things they’ve tried
*Place you could ask questions
*Links to cutting edge research on Early Childhood
*Links to classroom resources to download
*Tweet us your suggestions using @WheelockSpore in your tweet
