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» Using Twitter in lectures, classes and workshops C4LPT

2011-08-22T14:45:00.000-05:00

» Using Twitter in lectures, classes and workshops C4LPT

Doing research on Twitter usage and agriculture for an upcoming lecture. This article has some useful links.

Happy Birthday Twitter!

2011-03-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

On Twitter’s 5th birthday, users and media consider its impact | Poynter.

Here is an interesting article on Twitter's 5th birthday. This social media tool has certainly developed and become part of our daily lives in connecting with our communities. I use it for news analysis of the communities I follow. It is almost like a stream of consciousness of what is happening in Cooperative Extension, universities, media, agriculture, and the state of Kansas to name a few.

How Can I (Re)Publish Tweets? | Truffle Labs

2010-09-21T10:09:00.000-05:00

How Can I (Re)Publish Tweets? | Truffle Labs

Can You Guess The Average Age Of A Facebook User? [Infographic]

2010-09-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

Can You Guess The Average Age Of A Facebook User? [Infographic]

http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/16/study-ages-of-social-network-users/

2010-03-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/16/study-ages-of-social-network-users/

This article has some interesting data on ages of social network users.

Ag & Social Media « Gate to Plate Blog by Michele Payn-Knoper

2010-02-03T08:21:00.000-06:00

Ag & Social Media « Gate to Plate Blog by Michele Payn-Knoper

This is a great reference piece on social media for the ag audience.

How can K-State Research and Extension county offices use Twitter and Facebook?

2009-11-06T13:27:00.005-06:00

On Nov. 10th, I'll be meeting with office professionals in Wichita to discuss ways county offices and engage clients with social media. I'm hoping to find several examples to share.

Here are a few:

Facebook

K-State Research and Extension News Media Service

Rock Springs 4-H Center

ISU Extension Finance Tips (Iowa)

Dubuque County Agricultural Extension District (Iowa)

Madison County Extension (Missouri)

Gunnison County Extension (Colorado)

Franklin County Cooperative Extension (Kentucky)

Winnebago County ISU Extension (Iowa)

Warren County Cooperative Extension (NC)

Grundy County Friends of Extension (Illinois)

Greene County Extension County (Missouri)

Extension Risk Management Education

WSU Island County Extension (Washington)

Twitter

Andy Kleinschmidt twitter.com/akleinschmidt Ohio State University Extension Agriculture Educator and Assistant Professor

Glen Arnold, twitter.com/PutnumAg Ohio State University Extension Agriculture Educator and Associate Professor

Dave Messersmith, twitter.com/PSUmarcellus Extension Educator, Penn State Cooperative Extension Marcellus Education Team

Cook County Extension (Illinois), twitter.com/cookcountyextNews, programs and information from the University of Illinois Extension/Cook County

Ron Wolford, twitter.com/urbangarden University of Illinois Extension Urban Horticulture/Environment Educator

twitter.com/UNL_LancasterCo Lancaster County Extension, Lincoln, NE

Sample tweets

@gpaextension Jamie Axtell tells how 4-H in GPA is embracing STEM by encouraging members to participate in science 4-H Projects. http://156.108.32.130/

@aafromaa Asking for help with AU Service Learning from Extension agents (@ Lee County Cooperative Extension Office in Opelika) http://bit.ly/37ssoE

@gpaextension Megan Jedlicka describes how 4-H in Colorado is embracing STEM as part of every 4-H Project. Check it out! http://156.108.32.130/

@BrownCounty4H The Cloverbud Day with Santa will be held December 12. Registrations are due November 27. More information at: http://bit.ly/11x1iS

@OSUExtBenton Want to be a OSU Master Gardener? Apps due Dec 1st - Sign up for orientation! http://extension.oregonstat...

What Can You Do With Twitter?

2009-11-04T16:20:00.001-06:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

What Can You Do With Twitter?

View more presentations from sandiadams.

Tech Tips for Educators

2009-10-15T14:47:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting blog from University of Wisconsin-Stout with lots of good technology tips for educators, especially for using Twitter.

Suggested K-State Twitter Guidelines

2009-09-28T12:15:00.003-05:00

K-State entities who want to use the official K-State Twitter background must agree to adhere to these guidelines.

Only post tweets that are directly tied to your mission (for example, Media Relations tweets are about K-Staters in the news; athletics tweets are about sporting events.) Some campus personalities like the president, first lady, and athletic director, have individual sites that also represent the university.
Use appropriate K-State logo or photo to identify account.
Identify yourself clearly in the brief bio space, either as an office or as an individual in an office.

Best practices for K-State Twitter use

Write text specifically geared to the abbreviated format of Twitter, rather than cutting and pasting existing text.
Use of common abbreviations and texting language is okay. Spice up your Tweets with conversational and playful language, when appropriate.
Try to update your page at least once per day and up to five times a day, spacing Tweets evenly rather than sending them en masse. On slow days, try posting a question (e.g. "What's your favorite spot on campus?") or a photo you've taken. If you really have nothing to say, don't Twitter.
Try to mix your types of Tweets. For example, post some updates about what's new in your department; use photos and videos when appropriate; try starting a conversation with a user. Try to reach followers with broad interests.
Tag your message with #kstate, not #k-state, in order to allow more users to find your comments in a "K-State" search. Twitter does not recognize the hyphen, and so the only part that is an active link is "#k" when you use the hyphen.
Use links freely to convey your message completely.
Respond visibly to any follower who asks a question: other people may have the same question.
Delete profanity or other language deemed inappropriate in direct messages or before re-Tweeting.
Block any followers you find inappropriate.

Guidelines developed by K-State's Social Media Twitter subcommitee: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, media relations; Stephanie Gorges, university publications; Natalie Blair, K-State at Salina; Suzy Hay, continuing education; Kevin Roberts, Faculty Senate representative; and Morgan Chilson, alumni association.

Examples of Twitter Usage from other Universities

2009-09-28T11:59:00.007-05:00

I sent an email to colleagues from ACE (Association of Communications Excellence) asking them how faculty and staff at their universities were using Twitter. This is a collection of their thoughts.

Ohio State
We set this ning site up for our farm show. Has face book, twitter, Youtube, and Flickr components. Worked great. Over 1200 friended.
http://fsrosu.ning.com/

University of Nebraska
Here is a neat article about a professor using twitter at UNL.  http://scarlet.unl.edu/?p=3613   I've thought about using it in my class, but haven't yet. Maybe next semester! ha! I would probably use it for the students to help them learn to write shorter, because I teach Tech Comm and I want them to write to the point, etc.  And, you've seen our IANR News twitter feed.  

Iowa State University
We have a faculty member we are working with that seems to have found a very successful use for twitter. She is using Edmodo http://www.edmodo.com/ to facilitate discussion among professionals in the field and students on nutritionist internships. My colleague Lesya Hassall is helping her.

University of Arkansas
At the University of Arkansas we started using Twitter a few weeks ago for the communication services unit of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. http://twitter.com/bumperscollege It's grown slowly, thanks largely to some faculty who compelled their students to sign on after I delivered a presentation at a faculty meeting at the beginning of the semester. It's a good place to post links to news releases and other announcements. We publicize the twitter site's existence in our weekly e-newsletter to students faculty, staff and alumni and have a link to it from our college home page. We're still trying to grow the list. The Twitter guy at Tyson Foods told me that getting the first 500 followers is the hardest; he now has 4,000 but he has an international company to work off of.

North Dakota State
We used Twitter (floodinfo) to send updates about new resources on the NDSU Extension Service flood info Web site during the crazy times of March and April. Didn't want to use RSS feeds for every change since so many were tweaking the organization, etc. However, I tweeted when a new resource was added. Didn't take hardly any time, but I still questioned the value -- until a CNN assignment editor and local radio news leader started following us. And that was before we even thought to add a "Follow floodinfo on Twitter" on http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/disaster/flood.html! Overall I thought it
worked great with very little effort. We just should have publicized this option.

University of Illinois
U of I Extension's starting to get into Twitter. If you'll look on our homepage, http://web.extension.uiuc.edu , there's a link to our current Twitter offerings.

University of Florida
I know this will be past the deadline for your presentation, but UF is in the process of conducting a study on university ag scientists' use of social media, including Twitter, in their classes. Unfortunately, we're releasing the survey next week and won't have results for quite some time. But when we do, we'll be able to provide you with some answers. :-)

North Carolina State
We're not overly involved with Twitter yet, but here I have a few examples of NC Cooperative Extension Twitterers who aren't just talking amongst each other.

@ncce_news is NCCE's 'official' organizational Twitter account. Dee Shore is the voice behind the tweets. In the past 6 wks or so that she's been doing this, Dee has gained about 300 followers. I think Dee is doing a fantastic job covering the breadth of our work in a conversational tone. We automatically post the tweets to our public state and county web sites. http://www.twitter.com/ncce_news

@benjaminchapman is a Food Safety Extension Specialist who actively tweets. Ben collaborates on the Barfblog with your Doug Powell and others, so that alone should warrant a mention. :) http://www.twitter.com/benjaminchapman

@JeanineNCSU is an Extension Hort specialist who works at one of our research and extension centers on specialty crops. I believe she just started tweeting recently. http://www.twitter.com/JeanineNCSU

@ITTOTD is John Dorner and Vince Verbeke's daily list of IT related tweets. http://www.twitter.com/ITTOTD

Some colleagues of mine on campus at NC State started a nice aggregator of NC State University twitter outlets http://twitter.ncsu.edu which might be a model for the future for similar aggregation activities that we might do.

University of Georgia
What I heard at our session today is that most are using it for lecture reminders, event notices and reminders, alters that something they may want to see has been posted to the college Web site, club meeting reminders was a big one. But not a lot of substance.

Auburn University
Robert French (@rdfrench), a communications instructor here at Auburn, stresses social media including Twitter in his classes. He may be able to offer his own examples and point you to others using Twitter in classes. What is interesting is how Robert has used Twitter since Fall 2006, is that he has been able to engage students with practitioners. The results (the stories I have heard and observed) have been that students learn from practitioners and students have advantages in connecting and being found by PR firms. http://www.twitter.com/rdfrench

University of California, Davis
Interesting. I use twitter for engagement, too. I twitter the Bug Squad blog. http://ucanr.org/blogs/bugsquad/ The blog has drawn 425,000 hits in 88 countries since Aug. 6, 2009. What's unusual about this one: each one has one or more photos.

Oklahoma State
I am currently using Twitter and blogs in my Communicating Agriculture to the Public class. My class is for junior and senior level agricultural students. My students are required to Tweet at least twice a week and post a blog every other week. The final project in the course is a strategic communication plan. Therefore, my students are Tweeting about potential ideas, goals, and objectives for the paper. Additionally, they are also using Twitter to communicate with team members about potential references and resources by using www.tinyurl.com. This is the first semester I have incorporated Twitter and blogging into my course curriculum. Originally, the assignment was met with some resistance. However, I follow all of my students on Twitter, and I have noticed they are Tweeting about more than just the assigned class topics. Dr. Traci Naile (Texas A&M) and I are running a study about this type of social media. Should be interesting what we find out.

Purdue University
Earlier this year we set up separate Purdue AgComm and Purdue Extension Twitter feeds. The AgComm feed is where we highlight College of Agriculture news, often with URLs of news releases we’ve issued. The Extension feed is, in its current form, more a place where dialogue takes place between Extension specialists, producers, commodity groups and other stakeholders. It’s also become the place where we’ve tried some experimental “tweeting.” For instance, at our annual crop report at the Indiana State Fair in August, I posted about 40 tweets based on information presented from the report by Purdue ag specialists and the director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. A number of reporters and farm broadcasters followed the tweets — including the Indiana office of the Associated Press — and some of the information posted wound up in media reports of the event. We hope to do more “live” meeting tweeting in the future.

Oregon State University

Oregon State University pest expert Robin Rosetta sends tweets on a daily basis to alert her fellow researchers and growers in the Pacific Northwest about plant pests.

University Groups and organizations

ACT
I'm the national ACT Advisor, and my national officers used it this year during our National Conference in Fort Worth to update students about schedule changes and upcoming events during conference. It also seemed to keep the student attendees motivated and engaged throughout each day.

eXtension
http://twitter.com/eOrganic_CP You can check out the listing at extension.org, organic agriculture. eOrganic has a twitter channel.

http://twitter.com/BeGrowCreate

http://twitter.com/extensionorgsys

@AAEWranglers Science-based information from land grant universities; appears to be a system for managing questions not answered through eXtension http://www.twitter.com/AAEWranglers

University Tweeters from around the country

2009-09-28T11:37:00.002-05:00

@presidentgee Gordon Gee, Ohio State University President http://www.twitter.com/presidentgee

@medflygenes Bruce McPheron, Dean of Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences,
http:/www./twitter.com/medflygenes

@newman7118 Steve Newman, Colorado State, Experiments with using Twitter in his classroom. http://www.twitter.com/newman7118

@urbangarden Ron Wolford, University of Illinois http://www.twitter.com/urbangarden

@akleinschmidt Andy Kleinschmiit, Ohio State http://www.twitter.com/akleinschmidt

@iTweetMeat Chris Raines, Penn State http://www.twitter.com/iTweetMeat

@jmartinisu Jennifer Martin, Public Affairs Specialist at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (formerly CSREES) (Note from Jenny: We used Twitter all the time at Georgetown to share communication tips. Of course we studied social media so it was natural.) http://www.twitter.com/jmartinisu

@jeffhyde Penn State Extension State Program Leader for Entrepreneurship & Value-Added Ag http://www.twitter.com/jeffhyde

@WSUCAHNRS Washington State University College of Agriculture News Services - food, family, fuel, fiber, form. Dan Bernardo is dean here. http://www.twitter.com/WSUCAHNRS

@pvamu_cep Prairie View A&M University http://www.twitter.com/pvamu_cep

@ExtensionGuy Jim Langcuster, News and Public Affairs guy at Auburn http://www.twitter.com/Extensionguy

@osuextensionguy Donald Stotts, OSU News and Media Relations Manager http://www.twitter.com/osuextensionguy

@UWExtensionANRE University of Wisconsin news http://www.twitter.com/UWExtensionANRE

@oregonstateuniv Oregon State University news http://www.twitter.com/oregonstateuniv

@PurdueAg Purdue Agricultural news http://www.twitter.com/PurdueAg

@PNWNurseryIPM Robin Rosetta, Oregon State http://www.twitter.com/PNWNurseryIPM