Twitter Scavenger Hunt

This activity is a great way to jumpstart community and networked learning using Twitter. Anyone interested in #unboundeq is welcome to join in this activity – we encourage educators and students in various classes and open participants take part!

So far, there are 3 planned times for Twitter Scavenger Hunt during the week of September 17th, when groups in Cairo, Galway, and New Jersey will be taking part (we will post those times here when they are finalised — or you can subscribe to the blog to get updates). However, it is never too late to jump in – our “scavenger hunt” can be done asynchronously.

BEFORE THE TWITTER SCAVENGER HUNT:
  • If you wish to participate, you will need a Twitter account: consider whether you will use an existing Twitter account or create a temporary account for use in your #unboundeq activity. (If you are taking part as part of a class, this will likely be something you explore together before the activity.)  
  • Start following people connected with #unboundeq. How do you find them? Start checking out the tweets using the #unboundeq hashtag. Follow @unboundeq and perhaps #unboundeq educators (e.g. @bali_maha, @catherinecronin, @miazamoraphd). Follow your classmates and others who use the hashtag (or who follow @unboundeq). You might consider following people whose content is in sync with your own learning goals (i.e. other educators, writers, public intellectuals, artists, researchers, etc.). As you follow people, consider tweeting a comment or question about someone’s profile photo or something they wrote on their profile to strike up a conversation.
  • Network awareness: Conversations in our network will happen asynchronously (in and out of our various classroom times), so remember to keep checking the hashtag and your Twitter notifications. Please remember to respect and be kind to all those in your learning network. Thoughtfulness, encouragement, and generosity (of ideas and inspiration) go a long way in growing a smart, safe and productive community.
  • And if you don’t wish to create a Twitter account, that’s fine also! You can observe the Equity Unbound activity on Twitter by checking this link for the #unboundeq hashtag.
DURING THE TWITTER SCAVENGER HUNT:
  1. Share an #unboundeq “mystery object” image by tweeting an image (with the #unboundeq hashtag!). This might be an image that says something about our shared learning journey. Tweet this image as a “trace of #unboundeq”. Invite people to guess what it is or what it might reveal about our network. If you can’t join synchronously, you can tweet this ahead of time or schedule it on Tweetdeck. And you can respond asynchronously.
  2. Respond to another person in #unboundeq regarding what they have shared —  guess where images were taken or what the images represent. Remember to respond by including their Twitter handle and the #unboundeq hashtag
  3. Quote another #unboundeq tweet – add your own comment or question to the quoted tweet you selected.
  4. Send a private message to @unboundeq on Twitter (Maha, Mia, and Catherine), and we will reply.  A private message is also called a DM (Direct Message). DM is like texting someone directly. If not @unboundeq, then DM another person you have connected with in the #unboundeq network. Knowing how to use the DM feature on Twitter is useful.
  5. Check your Twitter “notifications” to see what conversations you have been mentioned or tagged in. Respond to any notifications that you feel compelled to, and consider retweeting tweets you think are pertinent.  Add your ideas via tweet to the growing conversation. Always remember to add the #unboundeq hashtag.
  6. Finally, keep checking the #unboundeq hashtag to watch the conversation develop — during and after the time scheduled for the Scavenger Hunt. Typically, the conversations and tweets continue for several hours, as people come across interesting tweets and respond to them.
ADDITIONAL TWITTER SCAVENGER HUNT ACTIVITIES:

Educators: you may wish to engage in some/all of these optional activities *before* the Twitter Scavenger Hunt is scheduled, to help prepare students to have ideas to share during the event.

  1. Please watch these short video clips on the “open web”. These videos include brief comments from Mia Zamora, Catherine Cronin, and Maha Bali on the topic of “openness” on the web.  (We suggest you watch the videos with the “close caption” turned on so you can easily catch the text.)

In response, please tweet a quote from one of the videos along with your own thought or comment — or tweet a question directly to the speaker regarding a selected quote. Remember to add the #unboundeq hashtag.

  1. Add yourself to the #UnboundEq map. Tweet a link to the #unboundeq map after adding your pin and encourage others to share their place of origin, or where they currently study or call “home”.
  2. Look at Chris Gilliard’s tweet about invasive things platforms have done. Retweet or respond to one or more stories which resonate with you (adding the #unboundeq hashtag) — or write your own response to Chris G based on something you know has happened or happened to someone you know (adding the #unboundeq hashtag).
  3. What is hybridity? Tweet out to #unboundeq an example of hybridity you came across – can be an image, song, video or a brief story of something… e.g. Hybridity is Maha’s daughter saying “hansleep?” which uses Egyptian Arabic grammar on an English word “sleep” to say “will we sleep?”. Respond to others’ tweets on this topic.
AFTER THE TWITTER SCAVENGER HUNT:

Reflect (in class, on your blog, on Twitter) about the experience and share using #unboundeq. What were your expectations? What happened, and how did it feel? What did you learn? What did you like or dislike? How will this influence you in future?

Dates and times for Twitter Scavenger Hunt 2018 are available in the kickoff post here

Image source: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 tiendq (Flickr)

2 thoughts on “Twitter Scavenger Hunt

  1. A Twitter List
    I started a bit of the Twitter scavenger hunt for Equity Unbound early this morning by creating a Twitter list of people who have been participating thus far with the #unboundeq hashtag.

    For those new to the Twitter scene in education, knowing about Twitter lists, how to build them, and how one can use them are an invaluable set of tools and experiences. I highly recommend you spend a few minutes searching the web for these ideas and trying it out for yourself.

    For those who are already well-versed in the idea of Twitter lists (no cheating; you’re only cheating yourselves if you’ve never done this before), feel free to subscribe to it or use it to quickly follow your peers. (Teachers are busy people and the 50+ of us don’t need to spend an inordinate amount of time doing the aggregation game, particularly if you’re doing it manually and not somewhat automated the way I’ve done.)

    I’m sure the list will grow and I’ll update it over time, so check back if you don’t subscribe or use the list in a tool like TweetDeck. Apologies for those I’ve managed to have missed, please send me a tweet reply, comment below, or just keep using the hashtag and I’ll be more than happy to add you.

    Even if you subscribe to the list or quickly follow everyone on it, I’d still highly recommend you spend a few minutes scrolling back into the Twitter timeline for the hashtag for the course and read what is going on. You’ll definitely have a better idea of who your class, teachers, and personal learning network are.

    OPML List?
    Perhaps I’ll also start a planet or subscribe-able OPML list of RSS feeds for those in the class soon as well for those who want to follow along in their feed readers? If you’ve got a particular tag/category/other that you’re using to aggregate all of your Equity Unbound participation on your own website, let me know in the comments below as well. As an example I’m using the tag UnboundEq, so all the related posts on my site can be seen at https://boffosocko.com/tag/unboundeq/ or subscribed to via https://boffosocko.com/tag/unboundeq/feed/. Let me know what yours are.

    If enough people are doing this, I’ll publish a subscribe-able OPML file to make it easier for everyone to use these without us all spending the time to track them all down individually and put them into our feed readers to keep up with each other.

    (Original with additional links published at https://boffosocko.com/2018/09/13/twitter-list-for-unboundeq/)

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