…. or “Mels idiots guide to Twitter” …

The last couple of weeks I have been regaling boring people with how useful Twitter is, and somehow I agreed to put together a bit of a “how to/what to expect” post for non-tweeters (some of you may find it useful to encourage colleagues too)… so here it is.

If you’ve tried to use twitter without considering how useful it can be for teaching “stuff” I can imagine that you would struggle to see how it could be of any use. Trust me once you’ve embraced the medium it is amazing – it isn’t all just updates about “this is what I’m eating for tea” which is what I was getting on FB (maybe I need to get some new friends!!) – There are 1000’s of educators all willing to share, collaborate and generally provide much-needed support, guidance and sometimes a shoulder to cry on or kick up the jacksey. I feel privileged to say that many of my twitter buds are also now friends in real life!

Some of you will already be “on twitter” and be a little afraid to interact with others – that’s ok – but you will get so much more by discussing ideas. Most of us (me included!) don’t bite and you’ll find most people more than willing to offer their views and ideas.

Soooo … I am a teacher that tweets (also known as a “tweacher”). I do know how fraught with potential issues having an online persona is – I’d like to think I’m quite professional in the way I use social media and this is why my Facebook account is locked down (I don’t log on very often!) and also why I have 3 twitter accounts: –

1. The main JustMaths profile (@Just_Maths) which students wouldn’t want to follow anyway and if they do I usually block them and definitely don’t follow them back. Sometimes I wonder why ANYONE would want to follow as I tweet maths stuff and generally use it as my virtual maths staff room.
2. The second account is @ReviseJustMaths where I tweet JUST maths exam questions and answers and I don’t follow anyone.
3. My final account is … um …. I haven’t a clue what it is … I’ve forgotten the password to it too. It’s my personal account and I think I follow 2 people!

I’m not suggesting that you need to have multiple accounts but some of you will find it useful (or indeed imperative if your school is all “anti-social media”) to separate your professional from your personal stuff but whatever you decide here’s my idiots guide to Twitter:

1. Go to Twitter.com and sign up (or download the app to your device). Now you need to think of an appropriate user ID – you can use your name if it is available and lots of people do this.
2. It is worthwhile spending a couple of minutes filling out the profile information – this tells people a bit about you and lets them decide if you are someone who they think will be worth following. It can be something as simple as “maths teacher” or you can use something a bit more deep and meaningful. There is also the opportunity for you to add a website or blog details too. ..
3. Upload a picture. This can be anything you want and it doesn’t have to be a picture of yourself. Don’t worry if you don’t have one handy you can always upload one later. If you don’t do this at this stage Twitter will give you an “egg” as your profile pic. Very easy to spot the newbies!
4. The set up process will ask you to follow some people – don’t worry you can unfollow later and more importantly you’ll follow more and more people as you get used to Twitter,

BEFORE I GO ON … When I first started using twitter I just didn’t get it. I felt I had to read every tweet that appeared on my timeline and it was all very overpowering. It took me about 2 days of getting annoyed at the sheer volume of tweets (OCD nature!!) and then once I’d relaxed about it I then spent the next 2 weeks dipping in and out before I even dared to tweet anything or interact with anyone (and I was really scared about upsetting anyone or saying the wrong thing!). Trust me it was well worth persevering with it.

Now you’re set up there are 4 basic “sections”:

1. “Home” (or “Timelines” if you’re using an “app” on your phone or iPad)

All the tweets from the people you follow will appear here. If a tweet is part of a longer conversation you can click on the tweet and view all the preceding tweets that came before it as part of the conversation. You can also reply, “favourite” and retweet (RT) tweets that you want to share with other people who follow you.

2. “Notifications”

Any tweet that includes your twitter handle will appear here i.e. If someone tweets direct to you, replies to one of your tweets, retweets or favourites one of your tweets you’ll get a notification here.

3. “Messages” – You can send and receive private messages to the people who you are following, as long as they are following you back – you can also send messages to a group of people all at the same time.

4. Your “Profile” (if you’re on a phone) / On t’internet this is “Discover” where you can see what some of the people you follow are up to (a great way to discover new people to follow etc.)

Hope you’re still with me … the basic idea is that you write stuff, people read it and interact or you read stuff and interact with them. It’s simple:

• Tweeting

Sending a tweet is very easy, you will see a box saying “Tweet” and you can type anything you wish into that box as long as it is no longer than 140 characters – then press the tweet button.  To send a tweet to someone you are following you need to preface their ID with the @ symbol.  If you start a tweet with their ID only they and mutual followers will see it.

• Retweeting, replying and favouriting

When you’re reading someone else’s tweet you can reply to (by clicking on the reply button) or if you want to share the information further you can also retweet it to your followers. There is also a “favourite” function that you can tag a tweet with – lots of people use this to signify to the sender that they like what they’ve said (for those times when a tweet doesn’t require a response but it feels rude to not acknowledge it)

• Following others

I keep and eye on who follows me and when interacting with others I’ll follow those that ask questions, or reply to tweets. As I said previously if there is no biography then I don’t tend to bother to follow them back.

• #Hashtags

You will start to notice that the # symbol appears on lots of tweets. This is a way of “grouping” topics together, so that (by clicking on it) you can view all related tweets. Popular ones in the maths world are #mathschat, #mathscpdchat and also #ukedchat. (If you want to share your tweets with others on the same theme it is useful to tag them with a hashtag).

There are other features such as lists and the search function but I think that’s enough for now. Getting into twitter takes time but I promise you if you persevere it will be worth it.

There are loads of great (maths) teachers to follow – check out my lists of who I follow or those that I appear on my profile page – “tweets and replies” is usually a good start (as it’ll show you the interactions they have with other people and not just their outgoing tweets). I was tempted to provide a list of “must follow” teachers but know I’ll offend someone by not including them …. I’m not THAT brave!

Hope that helps someone… even if just one person.