Hashtags & Conferences

It's that time of the year again. uLearn has rolled around and it's a great opportunity to meet up and catch up with the people of twitter, learn, teach and share.  This year the Google Apps Summit is also happening in Auckland - a Google Apps for Education 1 day feast at Albany Senior High.

Both provide a great opportunity to learn new things even if you aren't at the conference.

"How?"  You say...

Easily through Twitter.

Each of these upcoming conferences have a hashtag that people will use when sending out a tweet.  You can easily follow the tweets this way, whether you are at the conference or not and whether you are on twitter or not.

A hashtag (#) acts like a collection agent - allowing people to group together tweets on a similar topic or subject so they can easily be collated on the internet.

Here's how it works...

The wonderful people of twitter who are at the conference taking part in keynotes, presentations or marvellous conversations will hopefully add a hashtag to their tweet.

Here is a tweet that I sent with the hashtag #GAFENZ

This tweet will then be picked up in hashtag searches when looking for the hashtag #GAFENZ.


Here are links to help you follow the tweets from both of the conferences:

The Google Apps Summit on Tuesday has the hashtag #GAFENZ or #GAFESUMMIT
#Gafesummit - You can follow the tweets that are posted here on tweetchat.

#Gafenz - You can follow the tweets that are posted here on Twitter or here on Tweetchat

ULearn is using the hashtag #ULEARN12
You can follow the tweets that are posted here on Twitter or here on Tweetchat

On tweetchat you can search for a particular hashtag and it will group them for you together so you can easily read through the tweets being sent.  You don't need to sign up to use the site, but this is an option.  You can also change the speed that you would like it to check for new tweets - just click on the 'refresh speed' at the top of the page.  This is great for when there are a lot of tweets happening - it allows you to work through the tweets without them refreshing too fast!

So whether you are at the conference or not you can keep up with the conversations, ideas, links and more that will be coming from the conferences.  If you are feeling a bit bold - you might even sign yourself up for twitter and join in the conversation!  Just remember to use the hashtag in your tweet so we can join you!

Image used under Creative Commons: Shovelling Son