Day 8 of #YSJ10DoT: Twitter Feeds & Tweetchats Revisited!

 

Blog:

7mins

Video:

5mins

Task:

20mins

 

Over the last seven days, you may have found that as you continue to use Twitter, you come across more and more interesting people to follow and your following grows exponentially. Keeping track of them all can be a challenge, and sometimes you will want to focus on certain groups, or check in on some people only sporadically. This is hard to do in the undifferentiated stream of tweets on your Twitter feed, where they are all mixed in together. Fortunately, there are ways to split up your Twitter feed and group the people you follow into separate streams, so you can keep an eye on their tweets as and when it suits you.

You might want to group the people you follow into any of the categories that we looked at in Day 3. Some examples might be:

• Colleagues or services at your institution
• Colleagues and peers across the country/world in a particular field
• Professional or funding bodies
• News accounts
• Social, personal or fun accounts

Twitter Lists

Twitter has a feature that allows you to make lists of people; you do not need to follow a tweeter to add them to a list. These lists can be private so only you can see them, or they might be public so you can share them with others. We created such a list for the participants of this course on Day 2 (#YSJ10DoT 2019 List), so you could find each other on Day 3. We also try to maintain a list of all YSJ Tweeters (You can see the feed below). You might create such a list for the benefit of others, for example, to bring together the attendees at a workshop or conference, or the top accounts on a particular topic that you recommend other people should follow. You can share a list by giving people the URL of the list page, or let them view the lists you’ve created on your profile, where they can subscribe to your lists too. You could, for example, foster an online community or resource-sharing stream by creating a list of student tweeters on a programme or module tweeters.

To create a list on Twitter

Watch the video on how to create, subscribe to or follow a Twitter List. Or follow the steps below.

1. Go to your profile icon at the top right of the page (beside the Tweet button). Select ‘Lists’, and you will see a page which will contain any lists you will make.
2. Click on ‘Create list’, and you will be asked to name your new list and add a brief description. This description will be very helpful if you now choose to make the list public, so others can find and subscribe to it.
3. You will now be invited to search for people to add to your list. You can also add them later, by clicking on their @handle and going to their profile.
4. On a person’s page, next to the ‘Follow(ing)’ button, you will see the more user actions icon (3 dots). If you click on this, you will see a menu containing the option ‘add or remove from lists’ (this is also where you can send them private Direct Messages, as in Day 4).

While we’re on the topic of managing people, you can also block or report people using this menu, for example, if you are followed by a spam account or someone you don’t want following you. To view tweets from your lists, you can simply go to your Twitter profile page and click on ‘lists’ from the toolbar above your tweets

To subscribe to/follow other people’s lists:

You can benefit from other people’s connections and effort by subscribing to lists they have created. You can even follow lists without following the individual users in that list.

1. Click on Lists when viewing someone’s profile (for example, @YSJTEL)
2. Decide which list you’d like to subscribe to and click on the title
3. From the list page, click Subscribe to follow the list.

More ways to view your Twitter feed

Because it can be easy to lose track of it all, miss interesting items and mislay posts you’ve enjoyed, Twitter itself has a few more features which can help you stay on top of all the information. In the video I talk about using Likes and the Moments features in Twitter.

Highlights

Highlights are another way to view your Twitter feed. Highlights notifies you about the most interesting stuff from the day, tailored just for you. Your Highlights are based on a number of different factors, including but not limited to:

• Popular conversations among people you follow
• Tweets from accounts in your network.
• Trending topics and events

How to get Highlights on Twitter for Android and iOS

Check your mobile settings to ensure that notifications are on, and Twitter will start sending you Highlights via push notifications. Here’s how to adjust your setting:

• In the top menu, tap your profile icon (iOS and Android) or the navigation menu icon (Android)
• Tap Settings and Privacy and then Notifications.
• Tap Push notifications and make sure Highlights are turned on by dragging the slider to turn the feature on (iOS) or checking the box (Android)

If your notifications are on, you’ll get push notifications when your Highlights are ready. Tap the notification to open Twitter and see your Highlights displayed full screen. Swipe left to view more Highlights.

You can also see your Highlights by tapping the overflow icon located in the top navigation bar.

How to get Highlights on twitter.com

To view Highlights on the web, navigate to your Notifications tab. From the tab, click on the notification that says Highlights from @username and X others. You’ll then be redirected to a search results page featuring the Highlights timeline.
To see fewer Highlights in your Notifications tab, click on the down arrow icon from the notification and select See less often.

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Tweetchats

We mentioned Tweetchats on Day 7’s post. Hopefully, you will have had a chance to find a chat by now. If not, now is your chance! Inspired by the successful #Edchat, the #LTHEchat (Learning and Teaching in Higher Education chat) is a weekly Twitter chat where anyone interested in higher education can share practices/ideas, or just connect with other practitioners.  Each week’s chat takes place on Wednesday (8-9pm GMT) using the hashtag #LTHEchat. It focuses on a specific aspect of learning and teaching in HE, led by an academic/practitioner with relevant expertise. The topic of the week is communicated via the LTHEchat site, or on Twitter via the @LTHEchat account or the #LTHEchat hashtag.

Tonight’s #LTHEchat is called ‘Use of broadcast media and other AV resources across the disciplines‘. It is going to be hosted by Chris Willmott. You can see an archive of past conversations on the #LTHEchat Wakelet.

Activity!

Think about the kinds of updates you’ve seen on Twitter so far from the people you follow. Who do you most want to see tweets from? Try making a list of your colleagues on Twitter, or perhaps one for the professional and funding bodies you follow. Share a link to your list by tweeting it or posting it in the comments section below. This is one of the activities you need to do in order to gain the #YSJ10DoT 2019 Flying Open Badge.

Optional extra:
As today is Wednesday, we recommend you either review a Wakelet from a previous #LTHEchat or get involved in this evening’s joint chat.

To get involved:

1. ‘Follow’ @LTHEchat  on Twitter

2. Search for #LTHEchat on Twitter to monitor the conversation so far (Note, all tweets with the hashtag – including tweets from older chats – can be returned in these results, so check the date/time of the tweets for the most recent ones!)

3. Join the conversation by tweeting your own thoughts with the #LTHEchat hashtag and/or replying to another participant’s #LTHEchat tweet.

Suzy (@SuzyYSJ)

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Further reading:

Twitter: Using Twitter Lists
Twitter: Liking a Tweet

 

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<<< Day 7: Hashtags & Trends

Day 9: Managing Information on Twitter >>>

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Ten Days of Twitter for Learning Developers was originally adapted from a similar programme for STEM researchers, also created by Helen Webster. The materials are available under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA.

Ten Days of Twitter has been adapted by Technology Enhanced Learning for use at YSJ, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License.