Okay, so maybe I’m not quite at the tweeting stage but I am up and live on twitter. Richardson himself says that it is pretty typical for people starting out to simply consume information on social media but he also notes the importance of not sitting back for too long – it is a PLNetwork after all, and networks require give and take.

Despite having been limited to laying on my back or standing for the past week I have made some progress with my PLN; I have been laying on my couch working on creating a twitter presence.

For those unsure what twitter is here is quick 2 minute video – Twitter in Plain English.

First thing was first, I had to update my twitteraddress and name. Richardson recommends using your real name in various PLNs. 1. He thinks it makes it easier for people to find you, and 2. You appear more trustworthy when you use your real name.  Makes sense.

So here is my twitter address:  @smyers4alted

I then set out to find a handful of people to follow on twitter that fit into the areas I wanted to focus on in building my PLN as posted in my previous post.

Please check out my Google doc which outlines who I am currently following on Twitter. Please feel free to add to the document with any recommendations you may have;  but please use a a different font colour so I do not miss any of your great additions.

Once you have created a twitter account here are a few tips to help you find people to follow:

1. Start by searching by people you know and respect. Using the simple search option you can search for their name.
2. Take a look at the kinds of posts they make and how frequently they post. i.e. Sugata Mitra is an amazing man, but not an avid tweeter…you may prefer to check out his website or youtube videos instead.
3. Look at who the person is “following”. If you like them, chances are they may be able to recommend others that you may not even have considered that they admire.
4. Check out who they are being “followed” by.  After all, you chose to check out this person so others who are seeking them out may have similar interests to you.
5. Most importantly look at their “lists”. This can provide a treasure trove of greatness. i.e. David Wees (Vancouver) has lists including : “BC  educators” and “Canadian educators”; while David Truss has lists like “Innovative schools” and “Asian Educators”.  Let someone else who has already found great resources to help you build your PLN.  You are likely to find a great group of people via someone else’s lists…
6. Depth and breadth are two very different things some times! I read somewhere to consider the number of posts a person makes. There are people have tens of thousands of tweets – be weary of this. I find these are the people that are telling you that they are going for a bike ride, or looking for friends at a conference via twitter. In my opinion avoid these people. But that’s just my opinion – I’m new to all of this so I’m looking for the best educational bang for my buck.  I avoid Facebook in my personal life for this very reason – I simply don’t care where my friends are having breakfast or where they’ve just “checked in”.

Lastly, here are a few useful links to help you get started with finding people on twitter:

10 ways to find people on twitter.

 50 educational people worth following on twitter

Twitter and Canadian Educators…or should I say “Edutweeters”, yep, I said it.

Good luck.

Stay tuned for more on managing your tweets.

Thanks.

p.s. Don’t forget to take a moment to add to the  Google doc above if you can. It will be greatly appreciated.