The class Twitter stream will be here. By going to this link, you’ll see all tweets using our course hashtag: https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23iicW2015&src=typd
Twitter Help: http://support.twitter.com/
Sign up for Twitter at http://www.twitter.com. Read everything below and tweet @proctor (me!) a hello message by Friday, January 9th.
Create a profile with a short bio, and upload a picture!
Make your Twitter feed public (don’t protect your tweets under “settings”). You can use a pseudonym if you prefer to remain anonymous. But be sure to let me know which pseudonym you’re using to give you proper credit. If you don’t make your feed public, classmates can’t search for you and your course-related tweets won’t show up in the list I create.
To post a tweet, click the blue icon in the upper right on your Twitter home page.
Tweet every other day, minimum. You can post about anything you want, but at least four times a week you should tweet about something related to course material. It doesn’t have to be about that particular week’s readings – anything relevant to the course and worthy of discussion is fair game. So, tweet a thought or reaction to a reading, post a link to an article you came across that relates to the course, tweet a question to your classmates, tweet a picture you took of something relevant to the class.
Be sure to use our course hashtag, #iicW2015, for tweets you want to count toward this class. That simply means typing in that code – with the # included – at the end of every tweet.
Find and follow people. Follow other members of our class (see the list above), or look for people or organizations you’re interested in: @barackobama, @stephencolbertathome, @ladygaga, @kanyewest, are a few popular ones. Follow news organizations or companies, like @cnn, @foxnews, @nba. Follow UM-Dearborn @UM_Dearborn or JASS at @umdjass. Lots of celebrities, sports figures, writers, scientists, comedians, etc., are on Twitter.
Get in the habit of checking Twitter at least once a day. Just check in, see what’s going on – you don’t have to read every single tweet that comes your way (unless you want to!). I will often post short questions to you on Twitter, so I expect to see responses!
Focus on “thick” tweets. Thick tweets contain more than one layer of information, like a comment about a website or video accompanied by the link, or several ideas posted at once. Reply to others – engage in conversation.
Writing style can be informal. You can use shortcuts and shorthand to fit into the 140- character limit, but try to avoid too much “textspeak.”
Make an effort to reply to me and to other students to keep the conversations going.
A few other tips and how-tos:
Check the “Notifications” tab often to see who has replied to you.
To reply to a tweet, hover over the tweet and click the reply icon, or type @ and then the first letters of the person’s name, and a drop-down list will pop up for you.
If you’re looking for a particular person on Twitter, try Googling their name + “Twitter.”
To upload an image along with your tweet, click the camera icon in the bottom left when composing a tweet.
Issues in Cyberspace 2015 