Twitter Connect Reflection

For the past weeks my technology class has been quite active on Twitter to try to interact with people of the media in order to obtain answers to various questions on our topic of choice. For this Twitter Expert/Academic Connect Assignment each student needed to first create an academic Twitter account. To insure other Twitter users that this was an academic site we had to add a profile biography with the school information.

One initial step we took before following people and introducing our topic is that we have to tweet three times a class for a period of time. We had a summary tweet, we had to reply to a tweet and finally re- tweet a tweet. This would insure future follows that the person behind the account is not a robot but an active participant of the community.

I also believe that we did not jump straight into following and asking about our topic because that can somewhat come off as aggressive and it may give the wrong impression that we only created an account to ask questions this one time, while in reality this platform can serve for future projects.                                                                                                                                                       Twitter Icon

Moreover, the purpose of this assignment is to connect with people from around the world on social media about our Genius Hour project . Getting in touch with people would open up our options for getting information. We had to first  follow  at least ten people that were involved in our area of interest for me this was Lassa Fever but specifically in Africa.

To get accurate results and truthful answers we could not just blinding follow people who have the same interest or who work in the field. We had to do a little bit of ‘research’ on this account to see if they are active and if they are trusted people. One would rather follow an expert or someone in the academic fields rather than a hobbyist or even an author; However, the cases may vary, though one would think that an expert or an academic figures  are more trusted because of the years of experience.

After we followed the ten people we had to create a Twitter List which helps categorize the people that we are following. These ten (or more) people would all be put into the same list because they should all have interest in your topic broadly.

For the next couple of weeks we had to continue the three tweets per class in spite of the fact that now we had to reply and re-tweet a tweet from an account our list . This allowed the person behind the account to know that we are interested in their page and in their content.

For me I decided to follow eleven people who were interested in the same topic as me or who were simple knowledgeable about health and medicine in Africa. I did not find any alleged academic figures who found find this assignment so I leaned more towards, experts like doctors, hobbyist and organizations.

This people relate to my Genius Hour Project in such a way that they are all people who know what they are talking about and who can provide me with more information. They are people who was really answer any questions I have with great detail and resources.  Some of these people included:  @

; and.

In regards to the questions that I asked these experts, I tried to vary each question and ask different ones to each person to get a plethora of answers. To be more specific, I tried to based my questions of my Genius Hour Presentation, and the topic I will talk about, like, the Transmission, the Cause and more. This would allow me to fill in the gaps of any questions I have regarding this topic before the presentation. Some of my questions asked are just simple yes or no answers, however,  the people I asked always seemed to answer with more with gives more depth, and helps answer my questions better. That was greatly appreciated. As previously stated this helps in such a way that now I obtain more information to add to my presentation and this allows me to share the knowledge that I have acquired through these experts.

Here are two examples of the questions I asked:

 

Sadly, looking at the engagement of these people, only one person out of the eleven decided to follow back (); However, even if some people did not follow back, they were still active and engaged with me in a different manner. For instance @ liked many of my tweets regarding our common point of interest which is Lassa Fever. Also one of the doctors replied to me  when I left I comment on their page about a post I thought was interesting- even in the beginning of the process, when we were trying to build connections. Moreover, the members on my list did not ask for any extra assistance. Furthermore, once I asked a follow up question, I still did not get a response back since that time and onward. I tried to keep the conversation going with follow up questions but as stated, the users did not seems to engage in the next questions and no answers were given.

All in all, I got pretty good results, most of the answers I got were resources and those resources were perfect and covered all the topics in my presentation. They gave out a lot of detail and explanation about the Infection as a whole but also some more precise aspects.

This process of connections with the outside world on social media is not only relevant to academic themes. One can use this outside of school if they are curious about a certain topic. But, this Twitter connect formation can also be use in other more sophisticated ways to link up with people in countries where aid is needed, this social network can be a platform to help others even if you are miles away      (ex- Chicago Girl). One way that I might be able to use this procedure in the future is to at least make a difference on a small group of people or even a community. Whether its big or small I want to help or make people experience something that they’ve always wanted but never had the change to. To be more specific, I have been thinking about linking up with organizations for blind children and just go to these local places and read for the children (ex-Mbour, Senegal)- and Raising money and giving the funds to these organizations, so they can supply themselves with the necessary tools to better the lives of these children.

To conclude, although this was a long assignment, in the end, with pretty good results, it helps better my understanding about Lassa Fever. And hopefully this process with not stop here, but we will use it for other purposes.

 

 

–Here are some of the resources that I got: