Maybe you think that Twitter isn’t for you. You don’t have time to compose those 140 character tweets, and who is going to read them anyway? Granted, Pinterest is much easier to use. There are book lists, book display ideas, and lesson plans that are easy to spot because Pinterest is graphic. Once you find someone whose board has useful information, you can follow that person the way you might on Facebook. For example, Joyce Valenza, the Unquiet Librarian, has some great boards on Pinterest.
You may find, however, that there is information that you can use on Twitter too. One way is to search for educational topics using the # or hashtag. The trick is knowing what they are. A Comprehensive Index to Educational Hashtags Teachers Must Know About is a handy list of hashtags that are being used for topics in education. This is a great list because it tells you which hashtags are obsolete and which ones are current.
For school libraries, you can use the hashtags, #schoollibraries and #learningcommons to find information that is specific to our field of school librarianship. #edtech is a very common one for everything from apps to online tools. If you’re searching for information on digital citizenship, I’ve found that apart from searching #digitalcitizenship, there are many posts found using #BeSafeOnline and #SafetyOnline.
Librarians and teachers are social media hounds. Searching hashtags is a great way to get your Twitter feet wet and there is much current information on school libraries, learning, and educational technology. All you have to do is use that friendly hashtag.
