We are coming close to the end of this course on Twitter for educators. Hopefully by now you have started to become comfortable with using Twitter to connect and communicate with other educators. As you continue to dive deeper into Twitter you will find that there are tools created by third party companies to make your life much easier.
This particular task is twofold.
1. I want you to play around and explore some tools designed to help you make better use of Twitter. I have provided a list below of tools to use. I am an avid fan of Tweetdeck. That is my go to source when doing Twitter chats and when I want to follow a certain hash tag or person. I have referenced Tweetdeck before in the previous tasks. However, I don’t want my use to be the only opinions that you follow. Check out the list below. Test these out and find one that works best for you.
Tweetdeck
HootSuite
Buffer
SocialOomph
Twirhl
http://tweetchat.com/
2. When you find one that suits your needs and interests do a little write up on the wiki page under the tool that you used and explain what you liked or disliked about the tool. By crowdsourcing our ideas we can gain a more well rounded perspective of the tools. Be sure to tweet out to the #coffeechugPLN network when you add to the wiki so we can read what you shared.
Besides Twitter tools to help with chats and following hashtags there are some nifty websites out there to help analyze your data of your networks as well. These are not a necessity, but do help to give you a broader sense of your network and things you are doing. Take a look at these just to explore. If you have another tool be sure to add it to the list.
http://mentionmapp.com/
http://tweepsmap.com/
Your goal for this task is to explore and play. It is not designed to overwhelm you. There are many tools available. The key is to find the ones that work for you. I cannot determine that, but personally I use the Twitter app for my phone because it is simple and easy and I use Tweetdeck. Those are the two that I use. Others swear by other tools. Explore and please share our your findings on the wiki so others can use it as a reference and compare notes.
When we chat next on Tuesday perhaps you will be able to test out one of these new tools to see how it works out for you.
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