ARTSblog

Kristen Engebretsen

Based on a survey Americans for the Arts completed last year, 46% of respondents said that they would be interested in arts education programming that related to broader education reform issues, such Common Core State Standards, No Child Left Behind, the achievement gap, student engagement, and state or federal policy.

This week, we have 15-20 arts and education leaders from across the country discussing the intersection of the arts and common core here on ARTSblog.

To accompany our blog salon, we will also be hosting a Twitter chat today (Wednesday, September 12) from 6:00– 7:00 p.m. ET. All you need to participate is a Twitter account (or simply follow along without one). Don’t have one? Sign up for free! If you’ve never participated in a chat on Twitter before, here are some tips on how to participate:

Twitter Basics

Here are some of the basic Twitter functions to get you started, adapted from Allison Boyer’s article on Blog World:

• @ Reply: If you see an @ symbol followed by someone’s screen name (or their “handle”), it’s a way to hold a public conversation with that person.
• DM: DM stands for direct message. It’s a way to hold a private conversation with another Twitter user, but you can only DM people who are already following you.
• RT: RT stands for retweet. If you like what someone says on twitter, you can retweet it to spread the message to your followers as well.
• MT: MT stand for modified tweet. It’s just like an RT, but you might have had to change a piece of it in order to RT something and still fit it in under 140 characters
• Hashtag (#): If you see the pound symbol (#) before a word or phrase, it is essentially a keyword tag for the tweet so that others can find it more easily. On Twitter, this is called a hashtag, and they can help people search for your tweet. Basically, it’s a way to follow the stream of everyone talking about a specific subject.
• Twitter Chat: A Twitter chat happens when several people get on Twitter at once to share ideas with one another. They do this by using a specific hashtag.

Twitter Chat Basics

Here are some basics to help you participate in our Twitter chat, adapted from social media coach Janet Fouts’ list:

• Log on to Twitter a few minutes before 6:00 p.m. ET.
• Use a Twitter tool to help you monitor the #artsed hashtag. This will help you isolate the conversation so that your “regular” Twitter stream isn’t polluting it with outside information. Here are some tools you may want to use:  Twitter Search, Tweetchat, or Tweetdeck
• When you join the chat, spend a moment to scan the tweets around the #artsed hashtag. Who is talking? What has already been said?
• Questions may be posed by the moderator or the participants.
• If you ask or answer a question, please stay on topic.
• It is not OK (in most cases) to use a tweet chat stream to market your own product or services. This isn’t about you.
• You might want to let people know you’ll be participating in a chat in advance. This is a nice way to support the host and let your network know you may be a bit noisy during that time.
• Share tweets from within the chat with your network, perhaps by re-tweeting or with comments, but don’t forget to use the #artsed hashtag so people can follow along.
• If you ask a question or respond to someone in the chat, use the #artsed hashtag so everyone can be in on the conversation.
• It’s OK to greet your friends who are participating in the chat with a quick mention, but don’t use the #artsed hashtag unless it’s on-topic.

Because we will be discussing the intersection of the arts and the Common Core, feel free to use the hashtag #CCSS (common core state standards), in addition to always using the #artsed hashtag. The event will be moderated by Americans for the Arts and its arts education council, so be on the lookout for the handles of our moderators:

Kristen Engebretsen – @harvardancer

Lynne Kingsley – @lynnekingsley

Jessica Wilt – @JessicaLWilt

Deb Vaughn – @JazHnds

Here is a sample tweet using some of these basics: Excited for the #artsed chat about #CCSS, hosted by @Americans4Arts and @harvardancer. Join us on 9/12/12 at 6PM EST.

We hope to “see you” on our Twitter chat later today!