For the team of learning technologists at IML, 2016 ended with a day of presentations on the projects of the past year, and a look ahead into the future of learning tech at UTS. It was a chance for us to share our work with one another, but also a great opportunity for the team to start using Twitter.
So, why is Twitter important for people working in higher education? Eric Stoller at Inside Higher Ed put it best when he wrote:
Digital capabilities / literacies are important. They are connected to employability, revolution, activism, teaching, learning, communication, engagement, etc. No one wins a medal for standing in a room and declaring their luddite capabilities.
To use Twitter is to engage with the community of people within higher education, both those immediately around you and others on a national and international scale. The active Twitter community of higher education staff, ranging between academic and professional spheres, essentially extends the conversations we have while we’re at work. For an event like our IML PD Day, Twitter was an excellent platform for us to record what was happening, and for those who couldn’t make it to be involved.
To get our team on the Twitter train, we ran an activity throughout the day to increase the engagement of the PD Day participants with our hashtag, #UTSLTech. Here are five tips that stood out as successful ways of bringing people on board:
Incentives to tweet
This is relatively straightforward – offer prizes along the way and you’re more likely to get people involved and competing for those rewards. We handed out spot prizes on the day in the form of fun-sized chocolates, with larger prizes at the end of the day. This kept the momentum going throughout the activities and reminded people to tweet.
#utsltech official judges @lucysarthur and @Rhiannon_LT have gr8 taste in chocolate ???thank youuu pic.twitter.com/wOYz7QGOFt
— Tilda (@tilda_tweets) December 8, 2016
Woohoo! Thanks @lucysarthur @Rhiannon_LT @enm181 🙂
Best Multimedia Tweet of the day. #utsltech @IML_UTS @learning_future @liftlearner pic.twitter.com/fCmUlleK6u— Mark P O’Connor (@mmppoconnor) December 8, 2016
Purpose for getting on Twitter
Giving our team something to tweet about was more productive than simply asking them to get their own Twitter feeds rolling. As the team was already engaging in conversations about each presentation that was given, it was just a matter of converting those conversation points into tweets. So, giving your colleagues a reason to tweet is much better than just asking them to tweet about anything. We ran an end of day activity that gave everyone an opportunity to reflect on what they would like to see for our next event, and this worked particularly well.
A new way of reflecting on our pd day
think-pair-tweet #utsltech pic.twitter.com/DKw2FmNDoZ
— ariane.skapetis (@ariadne09) December 8, 2016
Sense of collaboration
Twitter is a great place for communities to congregate, and in turn helps to foster a sense of community. This is where the hashtag comes in. There are already a number of active higher ed related hashtags on Twitter, such as #HigherEd and #PhDChat. You can create your own hashtag specific to your event or team, and add relevant active hashtags to your tweets, developing your own community while engaging with a broader one.
Not surprised by this. That’s how many students use groups in Blackboard too. #utsltech https://t.co/woq4wwtM6H
— Jo Mc (@liftlearner) December 8, 2016
Lead by example
Twitter might seem intimidating for anyone unfamiliar with the medium or social media in general. Providing them with an example to follow can help others to become more comfortable and familiar with what can be done with Twitter. So introduce them to the hashtag and get some tweets happening for them to follow on from.
Kicking off a day of PD #UTSLTech
— Detlev Kerkovius (@DKerkovius) December 7, 2016
The first presentation of the day #UTSLTech pic.twitter.com/BzM2rFB7in
— ariane.skapetis (@ariadne09) December 7, 2016
Follow up
We’re planning to continue our Twitter activity throughout the year whenever we see an opportunity – for example, in other events we participate in and the frequent workshops we hold. We’ll also continue working with the members of our team and providing incentives for them to promote the great work they’re doing on Twitter.
Agreed Ollie, otherwise it can become a facile ‘like me’-like gesture. Further, a tweet needs to add something to the conversation to have value and deserve people’s attention (ideally not taking attention too far away from the topic at hand).
In a conference or forum for example, tweets are an effective way to quietly engage the room with a backchannel that augments what the current presentation is covering. It is a little like having your say without interrupting the speaker, perhaps conducting a quite online debate.
What is great about focused event-based tweeting is that you get to access the combined notes of participants in the room (albeit ultra-brief highlights) with links to related topics. At its best, it is the ‘wisdom of crowds’ in action.
Nicely put Andrew, that’s another great tip for anyone new to Twitter – quality over quantity when it comes to tweeting (like any conversation).
Hey Rhiannon, I totally agree with the idea of giving context to the use of Twitter, or any other medium at that. No point just asking people to tweet or just blog. There needs to be some more guidance, ‘tweet about this’ or ‘write a blog post about that’ goes a lot further than just ‘Tweet please!’
Thanks Ollie, I think guidance is probably the key factor, as you say. Helps to demystify the medium for those who are new to Twitter.