Chris Messana was the first guy to share a tweet containing a hashtag back on August of 2008. Since then, hashtags have become the most popular communicational medium of choice for television shows, political campaigns, educational news and updates, commercials, and also an icon of the 21st century pop culture.
So, what is a hashtag ?
Here is what Twitter said about it : ” The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Hashtags are a great way to build community around content.”
Who can use Hashtags?
To be able to use a hashtag, you only need to have an active Twitter account. Hahstags are embedded within tweets and they do not belong to anyone. Once the hashtag is created and goes viral, nobody can control it and everybody can use it.
How can I create a hashtag ?
It is very easy to create a hashtag but before you do so, you need to have a clear objective behind creating such a hashtag. For instance, as a teacher, I would create a hashtag for my ICT students and label that hashtag #ictclass. Now I can easily add #ictclass to anything I find online related to what I teach in this class and any student accessing the hashtag #ictclass would be able to see all the tweets with the cited hashtag.
- The 17 Best Twitter Hashtags for Education (2012 )
- A Quick Guide to Twitter Educational Hashtags
- What Teachers Need to Know about Hashtags
- A Must Have Guide on Using Twitter in your Classroom
Why using a hashtag ?
Hashtags enable you to :
- Categorize tweets that contain relevant keywords or phrases
- Hashtags help tweets get popular and be displayed in search result pages
- They can occur anywhere be it the end , middle or beginning of the Tweet
- Hashtags make it easy to aggregate like-minded Twitter users under a certain category
Examples of some great educational hashtags :
1- #edtech
This is one of my favorite hashtags on Twitter. It provides you with news, tips, tools…..etc on the use of technology in education
2-#edapp
If you are interested in discovering and learning more about the use of educational apps in teaching, edapp is a hashtag to follow.
3-#edchat
This is one of the popular hashtags and it is a great way for you to meet other teachers from all around the world and stay updated about the trending topics in education.
4-#edreform
This one stands for education reform and it speaks for itself , when you join this chat you will have the chance to explore what educators are sharing on educational issues.
5-#elearning
Using this hashtag you can connect with other people interested in online and electronic learning and also distance learning.
6-#mlearning
This hashtag stands for mobile learning and it features all the tweets relating to the use of mobile devices in learning.
7-#stem
This is a hashtag that allows you to stay updated about the issues related to science, technology and education.
8-#ntchat
This is hashtag created by Edutopia last May it stands for New Teacher chat
