Auto-Tweeting: Making Presentations Interactive Again - Part 2

How to AutoTweet with PowerPoint:

1. It seems obvious to say that the first step is creating a Twitter account, but years of experience have shown that sometimes the obvious must be stated. To be sure, you also need PowerPoint. Wink, wink.

2. Go to SuperTweet and sign in using your Twitter username and password. http://www.supertweet.net/

3. Download the respective tool you will need for your version of PowerPoint. Using these links will generate an automatic download:

If you have MS Office PowerPoint 2007: sapweb20.com/blog/ppttools/Autotweet.ppam

If you have MS Office PowerPoint 2003 or 2010: sapweb20.com/blog/ppttools/Autotweet.ppa

4. Open the downloaded executable file. It will appear as if nothing has happened except that PowerPoint opened, but you will notice that there will now be a menu item titled "AutoTweet" may(or may not yet) appear on your toolbar. If PowerPoint asks you to enable or disable macros, enable them.

5. In PowerPoint, click on the office button and select "PowerPoint Options" as shown below:

6. This will bring up the PowerPoint Options window. Click "Add-ins" in the left navigation bar to bring up the window below.

If AutoTweet shows up under "Active Application Add-ins," you are ready to go. Click OK and skip to step 8. If AutoTweet does not show up under "Active Application Add-ins," look at the bottom of this window, and under the "Manage" drop down list, select "PowerPoint Add-ins" and then click "Go."


7. If you have properly downloaded and installed the files mentioned in step 3, the AutoTweet add-in should appear in this list. If it does appear, check the box next to the add-in to load it into PowerPoint. If it does not appear in this list, you may click "Add New" and try to browse to where you downloaded the file, or just start back at step 3. If it now appears in your "Active Application Add-ins," click OK and continue to step 8.

8. Your PowerPoint Toolbar or 'Ribbon' should include a tab titled "Add-ins." (If not, you may need to download the Add-ins ribbon from the Microsoft Office website.) If the Add-ins ribbon is properly loaded, it should look like the image below clicking on the Add-ins tab. AutoTweet should appear as one of the options on the Ad-ins ribbon. Click on "AutoTweet" to make the final steps to connect PowerPoint with Twitter.



9. After clicking on "AutoTweet" on the "Add-ins" ribbon, the window shown below will appear. You will want to remember how to get to this window because this window allows you to turn AutoTweeting off and on by clicking a single button after it is set up. (You will want to turn AutoTweeting "off" while doing a test run so that all of your tweets aren't generated before you give your presentation!)

You will notice in the window above that you can add text or hashtags after each tweet. This will make it easier for those following a conference hashtag to locate your posts. You may include more than one hashtag. You may also opt to display the successful status of tweets. When you are starting out, this is helpful to know if your Internet connection has gone down and is therefore blocking your posts.

It also lets attendees know when something has been posted so that they can follow along. Once you have filled in this window, click OK, and you are ready to start tweeting! You will want to turn AutoTweets "on" at the top of this window so that you can test your setup and make sure everything is working prior to your presentation. Also, when you are ready to present, make sure you remember to turn AutoTweeting on to make sure your hard work isn't in vain.

10. AutoTweeting: With PowerPoint properly set up to AutoTweet, you are now ready to do a test run. Remember, when you are in editing mode, your tweets will not post even if AutoTweeting is turned on. It is only in Slideshow mode that they will post to Twitter. In the notes section below the first slide of your presentation (or any slide where you want the tweet to post), type:

[twitter] Testing AutoTweeting [/twitter]

Go to slideshow mode, and when you land on the slide where that code was included in the notes, a tweet will be generated! If the tweet isn't generated, go back through the last few steps to check your settings and password in SuperTweet.

For more ideas on how to use AutoTweeting, please read Part 1 of this article.

Curious minds want to know: How many times does the word "tweet" appear in this post?"

Auto-Tweeting: Making Presentations Interactive Again - Part1

We have all been there: we find THE lecture that we are dying to hear about, only to discover that the presenter has packed 150 slides into the hour time limit, and every time she shows a new URL, everyone scrambles to write it down before she races off to the next slide. Fifteen minutes in, and you are exhausted at the amount of information coming at you. It's after lunch, and that BBQ beef sandwich with fries is slowly sending you into a food coma. Before you know it, you are the only one in the classroom and the lights have been considerately turned off to aid your long winter's nap. You look down at your laptop and find a note:

"You were snoring. You might want to have that looked at."

Even presenters who take the time to carefully prepare may find class members wandering off to Twitter to find the latest humorous tweet. Perhaps you've experienced a class where attendees type madly on their iPads and notebook computers, stifling laughter as they comment on the viral ultimate dog tease video on YouTube. It may have little to do with the presenter, and everything to do with the overwhelming need to interact with fellow class members.

Lectures are limited in allowing for student interaction, even with vibrant PowerPoint presentations. According to Ignacio Estrada, "If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn." That would require customizing the learning experience to the student rather than following the same models we have used to convey knowledge at conferences and even in classrooms for many years.

It appears that this concept has been around for much longer than computers. Benjamin Franklin allegedly said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." Alas, many solutions may exist to help accomplish this, including interactive clickers and surveys, but these require expensive tools and software that are not readily available to most presenters. Perhaps that is easier said than done, but one solution may achieve enough involvement to make conference presentations truly interactive. Enter: Auto-Tweeting.

Auto-Tweeting works with Macs or PCs. It costs nothing beyond the purchase of software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Keynote for Macs. Here's how it works:

After downloading the necessary drivers and toolbars, you add a little "code" in the notes section of your presentation. Once you turn the auto-tweeting feature "on," a pre-defined tweet is generated when you land on a slide while you are in slideshow mode. The pre-determined tweet is typed between two tags, for example: [twitter] Your tweet goes here. Links work too! [/twitter]

At NGS 2011, I taught a presentation on several little-known FamilySearch products. Rather than waiting for everyone to write down each URL, I generated the URL with a tweet. This allowed class members to follow along on their computers, iPads, or mobile devices. It also permitted me to include important details that were helpful, but that I didn't have time to cover during the presentation. It gave a much more robust learning experience without taking much more preparation time and for no additional expense on my end.

Also, class members without access to Twitter during the class could go back later and locate my notes, URL links, and other details by simply writing down my Twitter username, fsanne. I was able to cover all of the content in my class, plus some extra information. I have already started planning more innovative ways to implement auto-tweeting into future presentations.

Auto-tweeting could add a rich dynamic to conference presentations, work presentations, university and high school courses, and in many other settings. It's a great interactive tool that reaches out to improve teaching by involving class members and taking the learning into social media tools that they may be using on a daily basis.

Auto-tweeting was brought to my attention by revolutionary Fran Jensen, a forward-thinking Community Manager at FamilySearch. There are several online instruction sheets explaining how to set it up, however, the process took much longer than I expected because it was so unclear how to download the necessary files. I have created my own sheet on how to set up auto-tweeting, and will include it in my next post, coming soon to The TechnoGenealogist!