Get ready to Tweet

As I told you in the welcome message, we are going use Twitter this semester to provide an important channel of communication within the class but also with the outside world.

Learn more about Twitter:
http://twitter.com/about
http://tweeternet.com/
http://webtrends.about.com/od/socialnetworking/a/what-is-twitter.htm

So how do you get started?

In order to begin you will need a Twitter account. Register here:
https://twitter.com/signup. If you already have a Twitter account it is OK to use that one.

Add your bio and pic & then follow the class Twitter feed:http://twitter.com/masclepw . Look at the list of followers on the the class Twitter page as those are your classmates and you will need to follow them as well. Over the next few days you should check back regularly. As I get notifications of new followers I will have the class Twitter feed follow you. 


You should also do some searching for other Twitter accounts to follow. You can find many celebrities. For example: my son is a huge Mythbusters fan so I follow Adam Savage. I mostly follow friends and people who interest me professionally (with my personal account) but I do follow some accounts which I think are funny such as: Some Grey Bloke and Fake Pew Research. A great way to get started is to search key words or phrases about a topic that interests you. For example, I searched for some Twitter streams about professional writing and found: TC_Chat, ATC, Technical Comms, STC_Org, Technical Writing, and Elance. The class account is currently following these writing feeds but I may unfollow them once the class starts Tweeting.

You should put some thought into how you want to keep track of Twitter for this class. You can simply check your Twitter account and the class blog @ http://masclepw.blogspot.com/ (see the feed for Twitter in the sidebar) but this doesn’t really harness the power that Twitter offers you to stay informed.

I have my Twitter account displayed on my computer’s home page (I use Netvibes to watch my email, Twitter, FaceBook, and the weather) and I also have an app on my Ipod as well as my Kindle Fire that allows me to read and post to Twitter. I have a lot of friends who use Twitter via their smartphone. Making Twitter easily available will mean that you actually check it – regularly! Between Netvibes and my hand-held devices I easily check my Twitter accounts multiple times a day.