Getting the Most From Your Social Media Experience

Twitter is great, but expressing yourself in 140 characters isn't easy. Neither is it easy to keep track of all the ideas and resources that spill through your timeline.

A lot of sharing is done off the social network site through other methods.

A dropbox account means that you can share resources, as it is possible to tweet a link to the resources, which others can then copy to their own dropbox account, or download directly.

A blog means that you can express yourself in more than 140 characters when necessary - like I am doing now. Tags in blogs mean that if you have made a point previous on your blog you can find it again and refer someone to the post.

Pinterest is great for categorising and storing images, and images with links to websites. Downloading the button for your browser makes it easier, or in the mobile twitter app you can get the link to the tweet and pin the images in it.

Pocket is a great app/website, it is a 'read later' service, that allows you to bookmark tweets and links in tweets. On the web browser version you can also add tags to make finding links easier.

Feedly is a great app and website for reading blogs. There are so many tweeters now with blogs, and feedly brings the posts directly to you. Sometimes I don't bother with twitter, preferring to read the blog posts. If you do find a good blog post in feedly it also allows you to post to twitter to share.

Other services to consider are evernote and google. They can also be useful for sharing and saving the resources you find. I also like bit.ly as it allows you to create shortened links with a URL you chose.

I am a science teacher, I have joined twitter, now what?

You've signed up to an account.

Choose a @ name that isn't too long. And get a twitter app on your mobile device.

Now follow some people. I recommend @viciascience, @needhaml56, @lgolton, @kdwscience, @a_weatherall @bio_joe @asober @DrDav @agittner @cleverfiend @stuartphysics @lornamonroe @MaryUYSEG @teachingofsci and @mrsdrsarah as a starting point. Also follow organisations like @theASE @tesScience and @ITEfaraday

There are some lovely people like @hthompson1982 @natkin and @teachingtricks who will do what they can to help other teachers too.

Now start tweeting. But what can you tweet?

Links would be the first suggestion: to an interesting science or education story, to a great website or teaching resource, to a blog post, or just anything that you find interesting.

Photographs and images would be my next suggestion. A funny or interesting science image or cartoon. A photograph of your students work, a display you have made, a slide from a PowerPoint you are proud of. Be wary not to post photographs of your students if you are unsure the school has the relevant releases from parents.

A comment on an incident that has happened to you, particularly if it is positive. A comment on a news story.

Another thing to realise is that you are connected to a network of around 700 UK science teachers and even more abroad as well as numerous science and science education organisations you can ask a question or for help.

And lastly, of course you can retweet the tweets of others and reply to their tweets.

If you want your tweet to have a wider audience than just your followers then include a hashtag in your tweet. I recommend #asechat #scichat or #ukedchat then people who filter ALL tweets by hashtags will be able to see what you have to say.

Do set up saved searches of hashtags like #asechat so you can browse them yourself. You can find new people to interact with that way too.

Welcome to the world to the UK science teacher community on twitter.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Rudgleigh Avenue,Easton-in-Gordano,United Kingdom