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Northwood Public School

Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Interactive Visual Archive of Twitter Conversations

A few months ago I started using Twitter lists to store links of my students' work.  I wanted Twitter to store the links of the tweets that I posted so that the Twitter links could be accessed later.  I wanted to use the stored links within the lists to create student ePortfolios, which students could access through links provided on this blog along the top bar.  I also wanted to use Twitter to update my blog with the homework for the day through the use of a Twitter widget found on the right hand side of the blog. 

Everything was going great for a while.  The Twitter links within my posts were stored, working and students were looking back at their previous work found under the Student Work tab.  Everything was going great for a while, let's say about a week.  After about a week, the Twitter lists had gone empty.  The tweets just disappeared.  I did not delete any tweets from the lists or edit them in anyway. 

I looked at the Twitter site and found in the Help section a post about missing tweets.  I researched the trouble I was having with missing tweets and found out that Twitter does not archive tweets.  I also found out that tweets disappear from lists after an unknown amount of time.  I could not have this, so I started looking (googling) for a way to archive my tweets for use with this blog.  If my tweets were archived and available online somewhere I could link them back to this site.  

I found a way to fix my problem.  The short version of how to archive tweets can be found here: http://wp.me/p1twQQ-3lE I began using the method by Martin Hawksey.  His method is found with a click on the previous link in this post.  

Another interesting use of a script that Martin wrote is a way to interact visually with Twitter conversations from a specific hashtag.  I am one of the organizers of edcampSWO.  I wanted the learning and Twitter conversations to be recorded from that day.  The script that Martin wrote archives the tweets from a hashtag or Twitter list and creates an interactive visual representation of Twitter conversations.  Click on the link below for the interactive visual archive of Twitter conversations from #edcampSWO.  This is an example of what it can do for your conversations. http://bit.ly/WmjHjF  

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#edcampSWO

Take a look at the storify.com slideshow version of the wonderful learning and connections that educators made at edcampSWO on October 13, 2012 at the University of Windsor. Click "Read More" to view the slideshow.