Do you know what a hashtag is?

I know everybody doesn’t use Twitter, and that’s ok. But understanding how people use the service isn’t a bad thing either.

A hashtag is simply a word in a Twitter post (a tweet) that starts with the # symbol. Like #kaplanu or #edchat. People use it so that tweets on a particular topic can be easily found. For example, folks at a conference may choose to use a certain hashtag when they tweet about the conference.

The #edchat hashtag is interesting. A group of educators “meet” in tweeter at a certain time and discuss a topic or question. They all use the #edchat hashtag so that they can follow the conversation. I heard that there were over 2,000 tweets in the meeting last week. I haven’t participated but it is an intriguing concept.

Various tools have been created to take advantage of this social practice. One is Tweetchat: here is Tweetchat-in-action gathering the #edtech tweets and displaying them in real time. Or click on the image below!