Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Oct 5th - Follow that Hashtag!



Day 5 - Twitter Hashtags #  click on the link to get more info about Hashtags.


When you first start out on Twitter the hash tag is a mystery. But when you work out just how hash tags work , being on Twitter becomes a very different journey. 
Even if you are a "lurker" on Twitter, you can still follow a hash tag. A good example are the two hashtags associated with uLearn this year. There is the official #uLearn16 and  #CENZ but also the unofficial, but equally as important # notatulearn. This way teachers can follow the conference as well as contribute to an unconference they have created. Over the last few days I was at the NPDL conference in Christchurch. The #npdl was tweeted out from the conference, followed and retweeted by educators around NZ. 

A good example of the power of the hashtag is in the following article by Alan November. A 
high schoolteacher posted  photo and posed a question to her class on her Twitter stream. See how her students responded.


So how can you use hashtags. I must admit I do suffer a little from FOMO - I have followed conferences from afar via the hashtags, I join in Twitter chats synchronously, but also can go back and read the tweets from a chat or conference the next day. 

Tte power of the hashtag is that all tweets with that hashtag are gathered together in your Twitter stream. Putting the # into the search bar allows you find and follow those tweets. #edchatnz is a fortnightly Twitter chat for NZ and other educators. #digitaledchat  moderated by Stuart Kelly is on Mondays with a specific focus on digital learning. 

So don't be #shy! Find a #tofollow and see where it leads.

Footnote:

I went to a fabulous workshop today presented by @stuartkellynz on Student Agency and Voice. He showed how he used Twitter in his class to gather student voice. #studentvoicenz to also gather our voices - Brilliant!












      












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