One Dozen Powerful Twitter Apps For Savvy Educators

This list is probably not for Twitter Newbies, but since you are reading this, it is most likely for you…   Harnessing the power of Twitter can be difficult at first, but when you begin to understand it and to think about how Twitter can be be made better, you begin to look for POWERFUL 3rd party applications to accomplish your goals.   This post contains some of my favorite Twitter Applications for use as an Educator or for Educational purposes.

Please consider re-tweeting this post or the individual applications listed below to share with your colleagues.  Also, please follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/pisanojm or @pisanojm) for continued updates from myself and http://MusTech.Net.

I’m not going to spend time writing about the virtues of well-known TWITTER applications like TweetDeck, HootSuite, Seesmic, TwitPic, Tweetphoto, Twitterrific,  Digsby, FourSquare, UberTwitter, Tweetchat, Tweetie, Twitterfeed, Twitter Tools, Twitterholic, or URL Shorteners.  This post will discuss and bring forth less well-known, but highly useful, Twitter Applications that pertain to research, organization, information dispersion, and other, educator specific, uses.

Each Twitter application discussed will be followed by a 140 character TWEET MEME embedded with a description and application URL for you to TWEET directly. Please feel free to use these pre-made Tweets and alert your Twitter friends about these great Twitter Applications.

1. The Archivist by Flotzam:

Undoublty, one of the best Twitter archivers available.   This Archiver DIGS deep into the Twitter-timestream and gathers Tweets from days and sometimes, weeks.   It allows you to search the Twitterstream by any means and is particularly useful for pulling up Twiiter HashTags and Keywords.   The program will allow you to view keywords in both a PIE and tables.  In addition, it will show Keyword Usage Frequencies by time.   It can save to its own text file and Export to Excel.  ~Only available for Windows-based machines.

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Direct Application Link: http://www.flotzam.com/archivist/

2. Twitoaster, the Twitter conversations service

This application is useful for a number reasons.  For me, one of its best features of it is the ability to THREAD Twitter conversations.  Anyone that uses Twitter frequently will agree that the lack of threaded conversations is a keymissing native feature.  Twitoaster creates a viable solution to this dilemma by incorporating their own THREAD-FIX to the twitter stream.  By using Twitoaster, each of your Tweets will be superimposed by a number that represents the number of people that have replied to your Tweet.  One click on the number and it will expand to show you a timeline of people and their responses to your Tweets.  There is much more to this service -try it out for yourself and explore.

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Direct Application Link: http://twitoaster.com/

3. Twtpoll, create Twitter polls and surveys and share them easily

Another great application for educators that allows them to create questions and poll their friends/group for answers.   The free version allows the creation of unlimited polls and choice from over 20 different question-types such as: Multiple Choice, Drop-Down, Matrix Grids, and more!

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Direct Application Link: http://twtpoll.com

4. Twitter Venn, create multi-keyword Venn Diagrams from Twitter Data

A fantastic application that allows you to choose multiple-keywords and check for TWITTER overlap by visualizing a Venn Diagram.  I.E.,  How many TWEETS mention various Keywords and How Many Tweets Keywords overlap each other.  It also will show you the frequencies, per day, of each keyword.

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Direct Application Link: http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterVenn/view.php

5. Tinychat, start video/audio/text chat rooms instantly with your Twitter friends

If you are starting to use your DMs and @replies as an instant messenger at times, you may, instead, want to open a Tinychat window and invite your Twitter friends to a private/group chat.  Extremely easy to use, Tinychat is by far the choice of many for quick and instant collaborative conversations with your Twitter buddies or groups.   It is even embeddable in other Websites.

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Direct Application Link: http://tinychat.com

6. TweepML, Create Twitter Follow Lists for Tweeps to follow everyone at once

TweepML takes Twitter Lists ONE STEP further and allows you to create Twitter lists that others can instantly follow.  With one-click people can follow all or some of the people listed.  It’s great for making an INSTANT PLN of pre-selected individuals.  For Instance, follow the best Twitter Music Education users here: http://tweepml.org/Music-Educators/

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Direct Application Link: http://tweepml.org

7. Drop.io/Tweet.io, a great way to share files via Twitter

Defunct, try http://filesocial.com instead (January, 2012)

Drop.io is one of the most convenient and secure ways to share files on the Internet with other people that use Twitter.  Drop.io includes a fantastic integration with Twitter that will allow you to Tweet (or FB, RSS, E-mail, etc.) others that you’ve added something to your folder for them to view.  Each Drop.iobox can have three levels of access: OPEN, Friends only, and Administrator access.

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Direct Application Link: http://tweet.io

8. TidyTweet, Bar-none -the best Twitter/Spam Filter on the Web

TidyTweet does what you think would be a simple task with Twitter (It isn’t!), it allows you to filter Tweets for content, SPAM, and keywords.  This is a fantastic program that is free for personal use.  It also includes built-in integration with other Visual Tweet programs.  Also, this app is very useful if you have to present TWITTER in a public forum where you may want to filter content.

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Direct Application Link: http://tidytweet.com

9. EduTweet, Ask Questions and See Answers in Real-Time

EduTweet is a “clicker-esque” question/answer application that allows you to pose a question in conjunction with a user-generated keyword added to a Tweet.   First, post a question and have your students Tweet their answers with your pre-generated keyword.  Then, the site will aggregate the Tweeted answers (with the keyword) and show them in real-time along with a pie-chart response graph.  This app. is easily integrated with mobile phones by using Twitter’s 40404 number.

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Direct Application Link: http://www.algebrahut.com/edutweet/

10. Tweetgrid, view multiple Twitter Users and/or keywords in a grid-like fashion

Tweetgrid is a fantastic application that allows you to type in keywords or users and follow/view all of the Tweetstreams on one screen.  By displaying a “grid-like” Web page, you can follow multiple Twitterstreams at once. It is particularly useful for Twitter Chats and integrating Twitter hash-tags into a Tweetstream.

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Direct Application Link: http://tweetgrid.com

11. The Ellerdale Project, Twitter Search on steroids

Defunct, Purchased by http://flipboard.com  (January, 2012)

While only in its Alpha phase, the Ellerdale Project provides fantastic Twitter search results coupled with trending graphs, trending people, and trending keywords.  It also include a timeline of the top Twitter articles for the related search term.   Not only does it provide accurate Twitter Search results, it is very visually appealing.

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Direct Application Link: http://trends.ellerdale.com

12. Snapbird, easily search someone’s Twitter Timeline for keywords

Snapbird makes it very simple to search Twitter Timelines for specific keywords from your Twitter Friends’ Tweetstream and it is able to search further back than 10 days (More than the Twitter.Com search function).   This is particularly useful for when you need to find a Tweet from the person you know made a Tweet, but do not remember when or you can’t find it.

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Direct Application Link: http://snapbird.org

13. (A Baker’s Dozen) TweetTabs, get-near time Twitter results of searches in multiple columns.

Not unlike Tweetgrid, Tweettabs allows you to have multiple columns of designated Twitter searches.  It also includes trending Twitter Topics and is easily sharable.  This is a very visually appealing application.

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Direct Application Link: http://tweettabs.com

Enjoy.   Please let us know of some of your own favorite Educational Twitter Applications in our comment section below!