Twitter tips (Guest Post)

10 Twitter Tools for Teaching

Twitter can be an excellent medium for collaboration, learning, teaching, and research. A range of free Twitter-friendly tools and web apps has made it even easier to use this medium in the classroom. If you are looking for a few good tools to help you integrate Twitter into your curriculum, the following list of resources is a good place to start.

Twiddeo - Twiddeo is a dedicated app that can be used to post updates to Twitter with video. Videos can be taken from the web or recorded on a camera or web cam and uploaded to the site. 
TwitPic - This Twitter app makes it easy to share photos with other people on Twitter. Photos can be uploaded on the TwitPic site from a computer or mobile phone.
Twtpoll - Twtpoll is a unique tool that can be used to create polls and surveys on Twitter. Teachers can use Twtpoll to get their class to weigh in on certain issues or to get feedback on a specific topic from people around the world. Twtpoll allows users to choose from 17 different types of questions, including multiple choice, essay, ranking, and rating questions.
QuoteURL - This Twitter tool makes it easy to share Twitter conversations. QuoteURL allows you to quote multiple conversations from different people and place them on one page with a permanent URL.
LazyTweet - LazyTweet is a handy research tool. To use it, simply ask a question on Twitter and include the words "lazytweet" or "lazyweb" in your post. LazyTweet will expose the question to a wide audience of Twitter users so that you can get the answer to your question as fast as possible. 
Twellow - Twellow, also known as the Twitter Yellow Pages, is an online directory of Twitter users. The site works well for students and teachers who are looking for other Twitter users, interview subjects for class projects, or conversations on specific topics. 
Twitscoop - Twitscoop is a good app for Twitter users who want to see breaking news or track trends in real-time. It can also be used to search specific topics, follow stocks with real-time charts, and get automatic updates without page refreshing. 
TwitterLit - This site posts literary teaser tweets each day. Each Tweet includes the first line of a book. First lines are typically chosen because they are interesting in some way, well-written, funny, or dramatic. Teachers who have younger students may find more appropriate material on TwitterLit's sister site, KidderLit.com. 
GroupTweet - GroupTweet is a great app for students and classrooms who want to privately communicate with each other via Twitter. The app allows users to post updates to everyone in a group using direct messages.
Planypus - Planypus is a social planner that can be exported to Twitter. It works well for classrooms that are collaborating on a project and working on a special event. 


Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degrees for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.





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