Top Ten Types of Tweets

While Twitter is fast becoming a recognized way to communicate with friends, acquaintances, and professional peers, those new to micro-blogging often find themselves communicating in a limited number of ways. It's not just about mining your feeds for resources, it's about building relationships with your tweet-mates. The best way to do that, is to make an effort to post a variety tweets.



Do the Play-by-Play: Broadcast a live concert or sports event; or share your response to a popular televised experience. Twitter is about community, and the sharing of your live responses can make any news report, playoff game, or special event a memorable group experience.

Be a Friend: Send supportive replies to the tweets of your colleagues. If you can answer a question, lend your insight. If you'd like to keep your conversation private, don't be shy about sending direct messages. With practice, you'll soon deepen your online relationships.

Let the Twittersphere attend your Presentations: If you are attending a conference, or presenting a workshop, consider streaming or live-blogging the event. Tools like UStream.tv and Cover-it-Live make it possible to share text, audio and video, and to do so at no cost. Tweet the links and use conference hashtags to assist those looking for updates.

Publicize your Learning Ventures: Tell us about your online publications be they blog posts, podcasts or wiki projects. Using Twitter exclusively for self-promotion isn't recommended, but doing so as part of a broad range of tweets can help your followers understand your work 'in context'.

Re-Tweet: Share the best links and stories that come down your Twitter stream. It's great to be re-tweeted, so don't be shy about quoting the people you follow. At their best, re-tweets often serve to introduce your followers to colleagues who can enrich their personal learning networks.

Report the News & the Weather: Have you noticed the number of news broadcasts that are beginning to reference Twitter? Whether you're experiencing threatening weather or are present for a newsworthy event, you can be the first on the scene reporter. Tell your network what's going on, and encourage them to share the story with others.

Tweet the Small Stuff: Let us know you're a real person, by sharing occasional tidibits from your daily life. Share the cute stuff, the aching frustrations, the mini-revelations... In doing so, we remind ourselves and our followers how much we treasure experiences in the real world; and we remind colleagues and friends that family and community play important roles in our lives.

Ask for Help: Don't be shy. If you've built a network of followers, rely on the expertise around you! Need a resource or want feedback on an idea? Feel free to post the occasional question. Over time, you'll be surprised at the range of support you will receive.

Get Your Tribe Together: With Twitter apps appearing on more and more mobile devices, Twitter is the perfect vehicle for organizing impromptu gatherings among colleagues. Whether meeting at a restaurant, movie theatre, or online meeting space, the tweeting of meet-up details is fast becoming a popular mechanism for bringing people together.

Be Playful: Posting an occasional puzzle, riddle, or challenge is a good way to encourage creative thinking on your network. As Twitter groups become more popular, I think we'll soon see gameshows appear on the Twitter network.


Having a diverse network of followers and followees makes for the richest Twitter experience. Emulating this variety in your own posts will help you to be seen as a valuable and personable node in the network.



The Common Craft explanation of Twitter can help you introduce the idea to colleagues. Are there other types of Twitter posts that catch your attention? Are there any types of post that you'd recommend we NOT try to emulate?

How to Blog

Condescending? Arrogant? Quick-witted? Outspoken? Honest!
"Say it in a Voice you Believe in!"

One thing Merlin Mann is great at, is "Getting Things Done". If you haven't seen Merlin Mann speak, it may be worth getting past the emcee (scroll ahead 5 minutes...) to check out his recorded talk from IzeaFest.

PowerPoint: More than Electronic Chalk!

When PowerPoint first came on the scene, those who created slideshows for public presentations were seen as 'magicians' in some respects. Since educators first began using this tool, we've followed in the steps of corporate users, and have failed to use it effectively. When used poorly (which is most of the time!) the worst part of PowerPoint presentations is having to sit through them! The problem is that many presenters use the PowerPoint file as 'electronic chalk'. Let's fix that!



DO use high quality graphics... Use carefully chosen photos instead of clipart!

DO use minimal text! No one is reading your many bullet points or 'shiver' paragraphs of text anyways! A presentation is much more memorable if you use only one keyword or one bullet point per slide! This gives you room for a quality image, and allows you to be a part of the presentation by expanding on the visual minimalist slide. Getting past the Mac/PC debate, this comparison this 2005 post on Presentation Zen is still relevant!

DO NOT read your slides to your audience! Just don't!

DO tell stories! Use your slides as introductions to Real stories that demonstrate your point, or stories that can act as apt metaphors will make your presentation more memorable.

DO learn from effective presenters! Merlin Mann is a terrific 'organizational guru', who is clearly comfortable when presenting. When time allows, check out this talk he gave at Google last summer (once the awkward intro is over... you can gain some great tips for managing your email. If you like the style of this presentation, you'll be able to make effective use of Merlin's presentation tips.

DO remember that YOU are the most important part of the presentation! Darren Barefoot is another presenter who has great suggestions on making presentations in this post "Everything I Know about Presentations, I Learned in Theatre School". The presentation should be much more than the electronic chalk notes you provide...

DO engage other tools along with or in place of PowerPoint. The best presenters in using communications technology are very comfortable jumping from application to application, or from site to site within a presentation. If you have live access to the Internet during a presentation, you might want to hyperlink to a wiki, a blog post, or any of a number of relevant websites or online tools.

DO preload content and websites you plan to use in your presentation. Use of a tabbed browsing tool (just about anything but MS Explorer) will allow you to pre-load sites that you'd like to visit.

DO become familiar with the presenter's layout. Both PowerPoint and Keynote allow you to project your presentation while having your notes appear on your local computer/notebook screen. (You might also want to employ a teleprompter.) You'll have to practice this with a data projector as most tools will not make use of this option unless a projector is attached.

DO become very familiar with your slide arrangement. The best presenters can adapt their presentations on the fly depending on audience response and interaction. If you race to show all of your wonderful slides, you may be missing opportunities to make deeper, more meaningful connections with your audience. Being prepared to skip forward/backwards in your presentation.

The slideshow is not the presentation. If it was, you could just hand it out and be done with it. If you are wondering why so many attendees are checking email, or doodling, or talking during your presentations, you'll have to do your part: Engage the audience by making effective use of your favourite presentation tool!

A few weeks later, I've added a few white space exemplars:

| View | Upload your own

| View | Upload your own

For an audio version of this content, visit the Teacher 2.0 Podcast.