Have you joined in on #NCTEchat yet? This Twitter chat takes place on the third Sunday of the month at 8 pm ET. There is a new topic each chat. If you have never participated in a Twitter Chat, you are in for a tweet!
You have probably heard about Twitter and that Twitter messages are limited to 240 characters or less. Twitter hashtag chats are pre-organized events and use keywords with hashtags (#). The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords in a Tweet and therefore categorizes messages. Hashtags make it easy to see the full conversation on a particular topic: Simply type the keyword into the search box at the top of your Twitter screen. For our Twitter Chat, the hashtag is #NCTEchat.
Wanting to join the Conversation? From the Twitter homepage, either sign in or sign up for a new account. At the time of the chat, type #NCTEchat into the search box at the top of your Twitter homepage. “Listen” in. Watch the comments coming from other attendees. When you are ready, speak up!
To compose your own message, click the blue and white icon (looks like a notepad and quill) in the upper right corner of your Twitter page. Be sure to include #NCTEchat somewhere in your post, so that your comment is automatically pulled into the chat feed for others to see. A huge part of Twitter chats is responding to other participants’ answers and keeping the conversation going! Many people use a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to make following Twitter chats easier.
#NCTEchat uses the Q1/A1 format. When discussion questions are posed, they will be labeled with a Q showing it’s a question. If you are responding to a question, use an A to show that you are answering and use the same number that was in the prompt. We always post the questions in advance of the chat on the blog so you can have your answers ready if you want!
An example:
Q1. What does advocacy look like for students in your classroom/community? What are some ways or tools that students use to amplify their voices? #NCTEchat
When you respond, you would tweet:
A1. [your answer] #NCTEchat
Twitter chats move quickly! If you can’t catch everything as it’s happening, don’t worry! You can search again by #NCTEchat to find the conversations. A Wakelet will also be posted a day or so after the chat. This is an archive of the conversations that take place in the Twitter chat. You can find archives of past #NCTEchats here.
With all this newfound knowledge, we hope to see you at #NCTEchat!