The following is a guest post from Karen Schweitzer, author of the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, a site that provides information about the best online colleges.
Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular way for teachers and other education professionals to connect with their students and each other. This popular social network is great all on its own, but there are many other tools that can be used to enhance the experience. Here is a list of 20 Twitters apps that would be useful to educators.
- Outwit Me – Outwit Me is a source for fun and intelligent Twitter games. These games are perfect for educators who want to use Twitter to engage students in vocabulary practice, the creative process, and other activities that require critical thinking.
- Plinky – Plinky is a Twitter app that posts a new writing prompt, challenge, or question each day. Twitter users are encouraged to respond with text, photos, maps, music, and more. Responses can be shared through Facebook, Twitter, and most blogging services.
- Twitxr – This free app sends pictures from a mobile phone to Twitter. It is an excellent tool for teachers and students who want to document a school event, field trip, or another special occasion.
- Tweetscan – Tweetscan works a lot like Google Alerts. It can be used to track specific keywords on Twitter. Every time a chosen keyword is mentioned a notification is sent via email.
- TweetDeck – TweetDeck is a personal browser that works with Twitter–perfect for teachers and other education professionals who want to manage multiple accounts and be more productive on Twitter.
- Tweetizen – Tweetizen is a free web-based tool that can be used to discover relevant tweets. It can also be used to track Twitter trends and groups.
- Posti.ca – Although this app wasn’t created exclusively for Tweeters, it does work very well with Twitter. Posti.ca can be used to create and send web-based sticky notes, files, and reminders.
- Twtpoll – Twtpoll is a free app that creates polls for Twitter. Twtpoll is an excellent way for educators and students to gauge public opinion around the world.
- TwitVid – TwitVid is one of the best ways to integrate video with Twitter. The app allows you to easily record and upload a video to your Twitter account.
- TwittEarth – This Twitter app is a virtual globe that maps out tweets around the world. Users can see where their Twitter followers are located and track Twitter trends in different countries.
- Twiggit – Twiggit is a useful app for educators and older students who want to combine Twitter with the social media site Digg. The automated service lets your Twitter followers know when you Digg an article.
- Twuffer – Twuffer is a free Twitter app that can be used to schedule and post-date tweets. It is perfect for teachers who want to line up assignments, announcements, and others posts ahead of time.
- Group Tweet – Group Tweet is a good messaging service for classrooms and other groups. It can be used to send private messages via Twitter.
- TweetFunnel – TweetFunnel was built for corporations and businesses but it would also work for classroom teachers. The app provides editorial control over team or group tweets.
- MrTweet – MrTweet is a free web-based tool that helps connect like-minded Twitter users. Teachers can use it to find other educators and classrooms with similar interests.
- Remember The Milk – Remember The Milk allows you to interact with Twitter via direct messages. It works well for teachers who want to remind students of homework, reports, and assignments.
- Twinkle – Twinkle is a location-aware app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The app can help you discover and send messages to people who are nearby. It can also be used to upload photos and updates.
- TweetFeed – This fully-customizable application can be used to display and track relevant tweets. It makes an excellent research tool for teachers and students who want to follow and discuss current events, trends, and specific topics.
- Twitterfeed – Twitterfeed is great for blogging educators. It feeds blog posts to a Twitter account automatically so that content can easily be shared with followers.
- Twittervision – Twittervision is a visual way to connect with people. Simply move your mouse around the map to view Twitter users around the world.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Tweetdeck is the best app. You can organize groups with those you want to connect with in your area of interest and keep up with networking and exchanging links and advise.
Thanks for the great list of resources! As someone in Training & Development, we’re often looking for new ways to leverage technology for learning programs (especially since more and more people are using social media for learning and collaboration now).
I’m excited about the potential to use Twitter (and it’s related apps) for learning in the classroom and sharing information beyond the classroom. Now if only there was consensus about whether to let people tweet *during* a training.