How to Survive the Twitterverse
I have to be honest…
I am not always a dedicated Twitter tweeter. Don’t get me wrong, I ADORE Twitter and spend time every day… ok, most days… reading and replying to tweets.
I also have the same issues many people have… I’m busy, I have a vast array of responsibilites and my time is precious. In order to protect my sanity and get the most out of Twitter, I had to find a way to balance this enormous pool of information.
Keys to My Success: Organize and Filter
Doesn’t that sound easy? Ha! I am a collector! I collect antiques, books, pictures, tweeps… I mean, I follow a TON of people on Twitter. Over the last three years, I have collected over a thousand interesting and intriguing individuals.
And each… person… matters… If I have deliberately followed each and every person on my Twitter account–checking out their bios, reading recent comments, how in the world can I remove them from my lists?
In reality, I follow so many people, the chances of me actually reading something someone sent out is a serendipitous event. That isn’t right either.
So, how do I do both? Continue to collect on Twitter, yet still manage to learn the most from my PLN?
As I mentioned… Organize and Filter!
1. Tweet Deck
Far and away, Tweet Deck has saved my sanity. Every person now has a place. Tweetdeck allows me to create columns; each column giving me specific information.
Terri_Science Tweetdeck Screencast from Terri Johnson on Vimeo.
Sometimes, reading tweet after tweet just isn’t want I want or need. Enter my second secret weapon.
2. Paper.li
Paper.li is my new BFF! It kind of snuck up on me. In a previous post, I mentioned reading The Missouri Ed Daily to receive news important to other educators in Missouri. It was and is an excellent aggregator. Paper.li looks at all the tweets from a given list and uses some fancy mumbo jumbo to pick out the most interesting articles, videos, and pictures. After several months of reading The Missouri Ed, it finally hit me, “Why am I not doing this?”
Enter, 
This Paper.li paper is AWESOME. It is for me, by me. Every day, I get a fresh newspaper that has plenty of reading material that is tailored to my interests. I’m not interested in having other readers subscribe to my newspaper, as it may not be as wonderfully perfect to them. However, Paper.li has the option to send out a Tweet when my newspaper gets updated and I clicked it… even though I don’t care if I get subscribers. You see, it also sends a Shout Out to my top stories. I think it’s a way to say thank you to my followers for sharing.
But, Paper.li can be more than a daily newspaper for your tweets. I created a weekly paper using only the educators from the Saint Joseph School District. The name isn’t finalized–another perk of the website! It went from iBode to the St. Joe News. The point is, Paper.li allows you to create specific newspapers based on lists or even Twitter searches!
So, teachers, think of the possibilities! There are already Daily Newspapers for thousands of searches with hashtags. If you truly want your students to see what is currently being talked about, there may already be a newspaper waiting for your class.
I read today that Southern Somalia has voted to create their own country. When I wondered what others were thinking, I checked and found this…
If you have a Twitter account, Paper.li allows you 10 credits to create 10 different newspapers.
A few suggestions:
- Start Simple–I tried to create a very specific newspaper at first and ended up with a newspaper with ZERO articles. Oops.
- If you do decide to create a custom focus, remember your search commands (AND, OR…)
- For the customized newspaper, try out the practice twitter search link. You’ll see what kinds of articles your paper will likely find.
- Before you try to create a new newspaper from a #search, see if one is already created.
- Have fun!
3 And finally, for those with iPads, Flipboard.
It looks to be very similar to Paper.li, allowing you create a customized magazine from your Twitter and Facebook accounts. One review says if you squint and look just the right angle, you won’t even know it’s not a true magazine!
All tools mentioned here are… FREE!!! So, try one out and begin organizing and filtering your Twitter feed.
Artwork Thanks: a mess at work by Ron Wieki and Memo pockets series one by Kasaa; both on Flickr
