Twitter - Purpose and Audience


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How I use Twitter - Through The Lens of Purpose and Audience


I don't remember exactly how I got started on Twitter, I think it had something to do with attending my first ECCO conference in 2011. I actually made our school account in August, but didn't make my personal account until October. As I started using the platform I noticed that some teachers use the same twitter account for their classroom as their professional learning network account. Other teachers had a personal Twitter account and kept it private and separate from anything to do with education. I've come to believe that my purpose for my professional account is networking and PD. If I feel that my network might like something I've done in class, I retweet items I have originally shared on my class account, otherwise the purpose of my class account is to share day to day items, and communicate with parents and students. I like this approach because it allows flexibility to make another class account and retire the current one should a teacher change schools or even assignments.

With this in mind, I made several other Twitter accounts besides the school account and my professional learning network (PLN) account

account   >   purpose   >   audience

- the school DT/makerspace account (promoting my program, sharing things I actually make with my students) (public, students, alumni, other teachers)
- the school athletic account (sharing team info like practice reminders, scores from games, pictures from tournaments, and intramural info like scheduled interclass games and scores) (students, parents, other teachers)
- my own classroom account (sharing things like day-to-day happenings, homework, relevant curriculum links) (my homeroom students, parents, other teachers)

following, retweets, favourites

As you can see, each of these accounts has a different purpose and audience. As a result there are different people I follow and different people I retweet, and different things I favourite.
- DT follows other Makers, Maker Educators, Makerspaces & companies, STEM, Lego FLL, technology, 3D printing, coding, welding, woodworking, skilled trades, etc.
- athletics follows Canadian athletes (eg. Olympians) and teams (both pro and some amateur), TDSB school athletics accounts, and a few sports quote feeds
- my classroom account follows news, other classrooms, and my current and former students… it's the only one I use where I will follow students, since the purpose and audience of this account is students.


Additionally, I have encouraged my guidance colleague to make a guidance account, which has of course a different purpose and audience! 

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