WEBVTT

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Are you looking
for new ideas

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or inspiration
for your classroom?

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Maybe just looking
to get connected

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with other teachers out there?

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If so, Twitter
is a great place to do that.

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To help get you started,
we're going to talk today

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about three ways you can use
Twitter as an online PLN,

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or Professional
Learning Network.

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So once you've set up
your account,

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the first thing
you're going to want to do

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is just follow other people.

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And the easiest way to do this,
I think,

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is to find a teacher you know

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and see who they're following.

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So I'm going to type in
my friend Merve here.

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We'll go over to Merve's page.

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And then I can click on
"Following" right here,

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and I can click there,
and we'll get a list

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of people who Merve follows.

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And so here I see he follows
a bunch of different teachers,

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and maybe I see someone else
that I know,

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or someone that
looks interesting.

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I might follow them as well.

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And all you have to do
is click the "Follow" button.

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As you can see,
you can follow other teachers,

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you can follow organizations--
like here I'll follow ISTE--

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you can even follow
famous people.

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The possibilities are endless
with Twitter.

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Just about anyone that you
might want to follow is there.

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So an important part
of building any PLN on Twitter

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is curating the group of people
and organizations you follow.

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The key is following people
who you think will inspire you

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and help you grow
as an educator.

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So what are hashtags?

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Basically, Twitter uses hashtags
to organize tweets by topic.

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Whenever there's a hashtag
in a tweet,

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that tweet gets categorized
with all the other tweets

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that have that same hashtag.

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Here's one right here.

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I can click on #DigCit.

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We also have #EdTech.

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These are hashtags that Merve
has put in his profile.

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But if we click one,
it will take us

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over to a collection of tweets
and other content on Twitter

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with that hashtag #DigCit.

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And we can find all kinds
of different tweets

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from all kinds
of different people here.

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These might be people we follow,

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these might not be
people we follow.

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You can search by top, by
latest, and you can also search

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people who have #DigCit
in their profile.

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Obviously you can click
on a hashtag anywhere in Twitter

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and that will take you
to a list of tweets

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with that hashtag.

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But another thing you can do
is to type a hashtag

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into the search bar.

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So in this case we might
look up #EdChat,

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which is a popular hashtag
among teachers.

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And here we get the same thing--
we get a whole list

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of different people who have
used the hashtag #EdChat,

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but we can also look up

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top tweets, or the latest tweets
under #EdChat,

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and we'll get all kinds
of great content here.

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But one question
you might have is,

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"How do I know what
all the hashtags are?"

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You can just search Twitter,
and you'll see them pop up.

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But another tip is
you can go to this great site

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where you can look these up.

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The URL is right here
in the search bar.

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If you want to pause the video,
and you can type this URL in,

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you can find it that way.

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Another way is you could just
do a Google search of

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Twitter education chats,
and this site will probably

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be one of your first hits.

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The thing about Twitter chats
for teachers--

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and they almost always
use a hashtag--

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is that there are so many
different Twitter chats going on

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that chances are
wherever you are,

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and no matter what time it is,

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there are probably
multiple Twitter chats.

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And some of them are local
to different places,

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and some of them are national.

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You just have to kind of
find the chats

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that are right for you.

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But when you find one
that's interesting,

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it's great to get
connected that way.

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So finally, the best thing to do
is to get engaged

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and actually tweet, or retweet,
or like some other tweets

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from people.

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So I can look at
what Merve's done here.

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I can like one of his tweets.

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I can find another tweet
that he's tweeted,

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and I can retweet it.

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I could even add a comment
if I want to.

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I just have to click
the "Retweet" button.

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And I can even write
one of my own tweets.

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And to do that, I can just
bring up a "Compose new Tweet."

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Here's one I already composed--
"What's the best way

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"to get connected with others
on Twitter?

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Asking for some friends."

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And I can tweet it at someone.

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I typed in Merve's handle here.

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And I can put the #EdChat
hashtag there.

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And I can actually
tweet this out right now,

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and then other people
will see this.

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Whether they're
my followers or not,

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they'll see the #EdChat hashtag,

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and they might find it that way.

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And I can get some responses
from people.

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You can ask, of course,
a more specific question.

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And it's a great way
to get connected

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with other teachers
and educators.

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So because Twitter
is a social platform

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that anyone can join,

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it's a great place to connect
with other people.

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And teachers have flocked
to Twitter in recent years,

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which is great.

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If you want to learn more

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about PLNs, Twitter,
social media in the classroom,

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or any other kind of
digital teaching topic,

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come check us out
at Common Sense Education.