In the spirit of summing up 2009, here are five top Twitter tweets for e-moderators and online tutors from 2009. Well, actually they’re from December 2009, but hey, this blog has only been going since November!

The thing about Twitter is that you only get 140 characters in a tweet (message), so you usually have to go to the web page itself to see if it’s worth reading. To save you a schlep, I’ve provided a quick description of the page in the tweet, so you can decide whether to visit it (or not). The five tweets below are for (respectively) online students, for wannabe online tutors, for newbie online tutors, for seasoned online tutors, and finally for jaded online tutors. Enjoy!

1 For online students 

twitter1chunian: What You Need to Know About an Online Tutor- What you need to know about online tutor comes down to understanding j… http://bit.ly/6eXZmj

  • General advice for students looking for an online tutor in any discipline.
  • My favourite line: One should never be afraid of asking for the assistance of an online tutor, regardless of how old they are.

2 For wannabe online tutors

twitter2MyDishBusiness: Online Tutoring Jobs – Becoming an Online Tutor http://bit.ly/7oMMnP

  • Outlines the differences between career, speciality and part-time online tutoring. Useful link to further resources at the end, including articles and videos.
  • My favourite line: The principal attributes that good online tutors possess include a love of the subject, detailed knowledge and the people skills to pass it on.

3 For newbie online tutors

twitter3mlmamo: Interesting post – Online research community moderation – more tips and tricks. http://bit.ly/36wiAD

  • Advice on how to be an ‘authentic’ online community moderator.
  • My favourite line: Pump up the fun quotient on your community by including regular featured activities…

4 For seasoned online tutors

twitter4jorge_acosta: RT @eLearnMag: 10 tips to success as an online student: http://ow.ly/N5tr

  • Some useful advice to give your online students. Could be included in pre-course information, or as part of an orientation task at the beginning of the course.
  • My favourite line: As a distance learning student, you will find that being pro-active and engaged in your personal learning experience will pay off in good grades and depth of learning.

5 For jaded (online) tutors

twitter5edutek: Tips for Building a Personal Learning Network on Campus and Online http://su.pr/1Mbx9g

  • How to include colleagues into your PLN (personal learning network). If you’re feeling bored or unmotivated in your work, these could be perfect professional New Year’s resolutions!
  • My favourite line: Colleagues can play such an important role in our development as teachers, yet most of the time we don’t make use of them in ways that really help us grow pedagogically.

Please do let me know if there is anyone else in the e-moderation world I should be following on Twitter… Thanks!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
December 2009