Twitter and What To Do with All Those Resources!

When people ask us where we get all of our great ideas, 9 times out of 10 our answer is Twitter!  When you follow people on Twitter and build your connections you will become bombarded with ideas, thoughts, links, and opportunities for professional development.  One of the things we hear as trainers is “I don’t have time for Twitter” or “I don’t know what to do with all of those tweets!” 

We’d love to share with you some solid ways of using Twitter and organizing resources that you will inevitably and thankfully be exposed to.  First, register for a Twitter account at twitter.com.  Once you’ve done this you will probably want to use a different platform like Tweetdeck to organize your friends, mentions, and direct messages as well as certain hashtags like ours, #tt4t.  Tweetdeck is an open site at BPSS.  Tweetdeck allows you to create columns that helps to organize the information coming in.  Using hashtags allows you to follow certain topics related to your interests.  Check out this site that lists all of the educational hashtags you might want to follow.

Second, don’t expect to read every tweet that might fall into your tweetdeck columns.  There is just no way to keep up with it all of the time and that is o.k.  Some people set aside some time each day or week to check in and see what is going on with the people you follow.  You also might become aware of weekly online chats and that would be a time to check in and be a part of some excellent edchats!

Third, use a tool like ReadItLater add-on button to your internet browser.  It is a free download and only takes a few seconds to load.  This favorite little tool allows you to literally read something later.  This is helpful when you click on a link from a tweet but might not have time to read it right away.  Once your link is in the readitlater column sitting on your browser you can go back to it when you have more time to sit and read all those great articles!  Then you decide if it’s a page you want to bookmark for good or just check it off your read it later list and it magically disappears.
 
Using Twitter really helps build your own professional development!  If you don’t want to tweet, then don’t, but at least take some time to check it out and follow a couple of people.  It’s like having a ton of smart people at your disposal.  When you are in need of some ideas, direction, or just want to connect with someone like you Twitter does the job and does it quick!