How To Use Twitter to Virtually Network at the ASCD Conference 2009

I couldn't attend this year's ASCD conference currently going on in Orlando. That's a shame, since conferences are such a great place to meet new people and share ideas. So I thought I use Twitter to see if I can virtually meet folks and share thinking.  

First here's my elevator speech introduction - conference attendees pretend we just met over coffee...

Great to meet you... My name's Peter Pappas, from Rochester NY. I taught high school social studies for over 25 year, became a K-12 coordinator and then finished the last 5 years of my career as a assistant superintendent for instruction. Since then, I've been able to devote myself, full time, to expanding my role as a staff developer and consultant.

I've had the chance to work with districts across the country with a focus on literacy, technology, document-based instruction and student engagement. Staff development should model what we want to see in the classroom, so I bring an audience response system and we actually use the techniques I'm promoting!

Follow me on Twitter - hope you have a great conference!

Oh .. and ... have you heard of any good sushi restaurants nearby? .....

Note: As of 4/26/09 the TwitterCloudExplorer seems to have disappeared.  Here's a screen shot of what it looked like during the ASCD conference. Notice my Twitter name edteck was the 4th most Twittered word when I took the screen shot.

Technical Specs

1. Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.  I sought out the relevant hashtags people are using for the ASCD conference. Note: It seems this year both #ASCD and #ASCD09 are being used. For more on hashtags 

2. I used a Twitter Search to look for people using the #ASCD OR #ASCD09 hashtags. Search results here.

3. Then I sent out Tweets to people using either hashtag with a link back to this post. Hopefully their replies will follow.

4. I'm a big fan of quantitative display of information, so I used one the many new Twitter visualization tools - Twitter Cloud Explorer to generate this embedded query. Note: As of 4/26/09 the TwitterCloudExplorer seems to have disappeared.  There are many new Twitter visualizations coming along every day.

Comments

[Mike Gwaltney]

Thanks for the tip on the Twitter Cloud Explorer! Cool tool.

[Angela Maiers]

Peter- Twitter is an amazing way to connect and learn, anytime and anywhere! What a great way to get folks excited about the potential and the possibility of networking and learning ....and it is all in just 140 characters!

[Laura]

hey Peter--Cool cloud! We're stoked to see all the folks using #ascd09, and will be posting clips from these conversations in our Conference Daily newspaper on Monday (it's fully avail. online, click the icon in upper right of www.ascd.org/blog

[Peter Pappas]

Hi Laura,

Glad you like it. Idea came to me in the middle of the night. Got working on it this AM after yoga. (Nice not to have a day job anymore. Gives you time to be creative.)

It's generated tons of contacts -which is exactly what's cool about social networking!

Hope to see it on your Conference Daily.

Cheers,

Peter

[Peter Pappas]

Angela,

The 140 max forces you us to get to the point. Can they install that at meetings?

I only joined Twitter a few months ago - right away I spotted your great work and started following you.

Cheers,

Peter

[Peter Pappas]

Hi Mike,

Looks like you were multitasking at MUN - we texted on FB and your lurking at Twitter. Why not celebrate your birthday?

Cheers,

Peter

[Angela]

What a GREAT tool! Thanks for sharing!

I'm live-blogging the ASCD here:

http://www.inpractice.edublogs.org

[Peter Pappas]

Thanks Angela,

I'm actually attending two ASCD workshops at once at home right now. Texting in both. Plus following a Twitter stream. And I'm at home with my coffee. Maybe I ought to cut down on coffee!

[Kate Klingensmith]

What a great use of Twitter! I think that even if I was attending the conference, I would still look back through this to see what I missed. I'd never heard about the Cloud before - how cool! Thanks for sharing! -@kate__k

[Peter Pappas]

Hi Kate,

Glad you like it.

I think we sometimes confuse creating (high level Bloom) with creativity. Creating is a new combination of existing material/info. By that definition, all kids can create!

Heck, even as a Twitter newbie, I figured out how to put a few tools together in a new way.

Cheers,
Peter

[paul baker]

Hi. Several of us will try live Tweeting the AERA conference next week in San Diego
http://www.aera.net/Default.aspx?id=5348

We have set up a wiki
http://aeratweetup.pbwiki.com/

and a twitter stream
http://twitter.com/AERAtweetup

Paul Baker
AERA Communication & Outreach Committee

[Peter Pappas]

Paul,

Good luck with the AERA / Twitter connection. Look's like the Communication & Outreach Committee is on the mark!

Cheers,

Peter