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.

I was going to write this post the other night, but I decided to put it off until later. I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing that with a lot of things in my life lately — paying bills, filing my taxes, responding to emails, writing blog posts. Why is this happening?

Studies show that some of the most common reasons for procrastination include:

• Fear and anxiety of the task
• Difficulty concentrating
• Bad time management
• Lack of confidence that you can succeed
• Fear of failure
• The quest for perfectionism
• Personal issues (love life, finances, etc.)

That seems like a pretty comprehensive list of the human experience. I’m guessing that most of you have experienced at least one or, more likely, all of the items listed above at one point or another in your life. If not, then you might want to see a doctor to make sure you’re not a robot. The truth is we all procrastinate.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
– Mark Twain

I must admit that I have some fear and anxiety about doing my own taxes for the first time, which may explain why I still haven’t finished them yet. The fact that I already know that I’ll owe the IRS some more money when I do file my taxes may be another reason I’ve been putting them off.

Procrastination is really just a battle against yourself. The obstacles that keep us from getting things done are all in our head. How many times have you used the “I just don’t have enough time” excuse? Have you ever spent so much time trying to make something perfect that you never actually get it done?

The key to overcoming these obstacles is turning your irrational thoughts and fears into concrete goals and tasks. If you set more realistic goals for yourself, then you’ll be less likely to get stuck on trying to make something perfect before moving on. If you prioritize the tasks to reach your goals, then you’ll see that there is enough time to get most, if not all, of your tasks done.

With that being said, what’s the point of trying to overcome procrastination? If we all procrastinate, then won’t we just put off overcoming procrastination too?

If there’s one thing you pick up in college that’s actually useful in the real world, it’s learning how to stay up late to get work done. I have a deadline today for a project at work, so I stayed late last night to get it done. By late, I mean really late, and by really late, I mean past midnight. I guess there’s still some grad student left in me even after graduating.

My night owl days started in high school. I was so busy with extracurricular activities that some days I wouldn’t even get home until 10 PM. That didn’t leave much time to get all of my homework done. While some people would have just blown off the homework, I was determined to get it all done, and I did get it done.

Of course, staying up late to finish all of my work had its consequences. I honestly think that I fell asleep at least once in almost every single class I took in high school. Looking back, I guess I was just getting prepped for college.

Oddly enough, I almost never fell asleep in my college classes. During a few semesters, I didn’t have any classes before noon, and none of my classes were that boring. College was great because I could do my work at night when I felt most awake, and I still had time to get a regular amount of sleep.

On the other hand, I’ve had friends who prefer waking up early to get work done. Being a night owl, I’ve never been able to understand these morning types, which is why I refer to them as freaks. For example, one of my old college roommates used to be done with his homework before I made it out of bed. Freak.

So are you a night owl or a morning person (freak)?

Welcome to Broke Grad Student’s 5-step guide to doing it. What is it? In this case, it can be something, anything, and everything — paying off your credit cards, starting an emergency fund, asking a girl out, calling your parents, asking a guy out, eating something other than ramen, paying your bills, balancing your checkbook, creating a budget, cutting your expenses, getting a hair cut, getting them all cut, planning a vacation, eliminating your debt, finishing your thesis, or walking your dog.

Step 1: Admit that you need to do it.

The first step is to simply admit that it needs to be done. This is easier said than done. It’s really easy to put it off until you’re not as busy, or any of the other excuses you can come up with. However, the truth is that it will never get done until you face the reality that you need to do it.

Step 2: Convince yourself that you can do it.

Now that you’ve admitted that it needs to be done, the next challenge is convincing yourself that you can actually do it. To do this, you have to overcome your fear of failure. The key thing to remember is that there’s a 100% chance of failure if you never try doing it in the first place.

Step 3: Start doing it.

The previous two steps were just mental preparation for this step. Now it’s time to start the physical act of doing it. This is probably the easiest step of the entire process. A lot of people start doing it, but many people never make it any farther.

Step 4: Keep doing it.

You have to keep it up once you start doing it. Beware of this step though because if you blow it here, you may end up falling back down to Step 1. You will experience obstacles along the way, and it’ll be tempting to take the easy way out. However, instead of giving up, remind yourself of why you need to do it and the fact that you can do it.

Step 5: Do it until it’s done.

You can finally see the finish line, but it still seems so far away. Well, put on your glasses, throw in your contacts, or get laser eye surgery! You’re almost done, so just keep doing it. Finish what you needed to do and what you know you can do by doing it until it’s done.