Social Networking Project
Jessica Hutter
What social media to choose?
Pre -Survey
- How many followers/fans do you have? 7
- How many people do you follow? 24
- How many times a day do you post? I did not post daily, just the 2 or 3 times to promote blog
- How often do you interact with others? I do not (wasn't using twitter).
- What time of day do you post most often? I was not posting daily, so not applicable.
- Are your posts focused? I guess technically yes because I only posted 2 or 3 times to promote blog, that was all!
- Do you think about your audience? I was only posting to the group #Edit663_blog and to @luzminaya- that was the sole purpose prior to the social networking project.
Here is the screencast of my Pre-Survey, answering the questions:
THE PLAN
Creating a TWO WEEK PLAN for the Social Networking Project:
- What is the URL or username? @jessica_hutter
2. What are you going to be an expert on through your account? (What is the focus of your posts?)
- All of my posts will be focused on educational technology, educational practices using the technologies, and trying to get people to view our blog: http://kidblog.org/class/educational-apps-for-social-media/posts
3. What 2 -3 categories will your posts mostly fall under? (Topics on #EDTECH, how to drive traffic to your site (BLOG, Wiki, MicroBlogging, other), new tech equipment for education, APPs, tech innovation, best practices etc…)
- A) #EDTECH
- B) Educational Apps (trying to focus on FREE Apps)
- C) Sending traffic to our blog : http://kidblog.org/class/educational-apps-for-social-media/posts
4. How often will you post (your minimum): Since I am JUST starting to use TWITTER I believe I will post a minimum of three posts per day to reach my goals.
5. How will you post? Phone/ Computer/ Other? I plan to post by using my laptop, school tablet & my mobile phone.
6. When will you post? (Think about your intended audience) I will try to post at least once during the day , and once at night the first few days to see whether I am getting more followers/action at certain times, and then choose which one seems to work the best. I have NO idea since I have never used Twitter before (I'll talk about what works/what time I went with in the reflection).
7. If you get negative comments, how will you deal with them? I hope that I do not get any negative comments, but If I do I will ignore & make sure that the person no longer can view my posts (change privacy settings & block user).
8. How quickly will you respond if someone replies or comments back to you? (within what amount of time) I will respond within 24 hours if someone is commenting or asking me questions!
9. What are your expectations/goals you hope to reach by sticking to this plan? I have never used TWITTER before, so my goal first and foremost is to get into the Twitter world & feel comfortable using the different features & MAKE CONNECTIONS WITH PEOPLE. I also would love to using the social media forum to share and learn about information regarding educational technology, different technology tools for teaching and learning & I would LOVE to send viewers to visit the group blog which we have created.
Post - Survey
- How many followers/fans do you have? 71
- How many people do you follow? 148
- How many times a day do you post? At least 3 times a day (all in the evening)
- How often do you interact with others? At least 3 times a day
- What time of day do you post most often? In the evening between 6-8 usually
- Are your posts focused? Yes, they are focused on educational technology, best practices, new and exciting educational technology & ALSO to promote our group blog & the ideas/material off of there.
- Do you think about your audience? Yes, I think about connecting with other who are into educational technology & networking/sharing ideas with others in the teaching field. It was wonderful to get great ideas and connect with other teachers on using different technology in the classroom. This has been an AWESOME project because I really wanted to learn how to use twitter to network!
Here is the screencast of my Post- Survey:
REFLECTION
Using Twitter for the social networking project was a great experience for me. First and foremost, I was curious and wanted to become familiar with how to use twitter. Twitter is an excellent platform to network and make connections with people worldwide. It is also something that students are familiar with, most use, and is very likely to be used within education. If twitter doesn’t infiltrate the academic walls of my district, something very similar will. (Link: Why I chose twitter)
Developing a two week plan for using twitter was a bit daunting because I had never used twitter other than to promote our group blogging project once or twice prior to the project (Link: Pre-Survey). Part of the plan was to determine whether you would post at a specific time during the day/night because of your audience. After trying a few times in the beginning of the project, it seemed as though I got more feedback/action using twitter in the evening, so I stuck to posting at least 3 times per night (usually between 6pm-9pm). I ended up posting more than 3 times most of the evening, and ended up interacting with others by retweeting their great ideas/resources or replying to their comments. Every single one of my tweets were very focused on my audience & who I wanted to connect with. I posted about different educational technologies, articles features educational technologies, best practices and experience using different educational technologies, and I of course promoted our group blog project which featured educational apps & uses of social media/educational technology for differentiation. I also began to network and connect with others who are in the educational technology field. At the beginning of the project I only followed 24 people on twitter, and am now following 148 people! All of my connections were based on different people who shared/showed interest in educational technology, best practices using educational technology, and sharing new and exciting educational technology within teaching.
Looking back at my expectations, the two weeks went much better than I thought it would go. I started with only 7 people following me at the beginning of the project (I think all were from this class). By the end of the two weeks, I had 71 followers from all over the United States, and some overseas! It was great to use twitter to network with another 148 people who all are interested in educational technology in some way shape or form. I especially thought it was awesome to connect with another elementary teacher who was using kidblog.org with her students in the United Kingdom!
Using twitter, for a focused purpose, was such a great experience for me. I had always thought of twitter as a; posting pictures, personal, not professional type of platform. Using twitter for this social networking project has opened my eyes to how powerful social media & twitter, can be as a tool for professional use. I am definitely going to continue to use twitter to continue to network and use as a tool to connect and share ideas professionally about educational technology. Some changes to my plan will be the fact that I will potentially tweet way more than 3 tweets per day, closer to 10. Twitter is blocked from being used at my school/in district, but it has opened my eyes to how it can be used in a focused, academic & professional way. I’m wondering if my district will ever warm up to using twitter within the district, or if we will only be using other social media platforms which are easier to monitor due to the COPPA and CIPA policies (Link: Post Survey).
Cool outcomes from the project:
- I connected with another elementary class in the UK who was using kidblog, just like I did with my 2nd grade summer academy students!
- Got lots of retweets/favorites on posting info from/promoting our blog
- have 71 people following my thoughts/ideas about teaching and using edtech
- I learned how to use and will CONTINUE TO USE TWITTER! :)