Welcome to Mastodon, fellow educator! I once sent this via a DM, but decided that you might prefer to read it here and I only have to send you one link.

These mobile apps are great. I recommend you create your Mastodon account on a desktop device browser, NOT an app.

Welcome Announcement

Welcome! 🖖 😀 Glad you could make it. My apologies if you’ve seen these tips below. I share them with educators who appear to be new to Mastodon and follow me. They may save you some isolation.

There are many educators, including teacher-librarians, here. Some tips to connect:

1) Add #EduTooter hashtag to your toots/posts to reach educators of all sorts. If a librarian, add #K12Librarian or #Librarian hashtag. Include other hashtags like #EdTech #Education #SocialStudies #Science #Math #TCEA #ISTE #GoogleEDU as appropriate to reach people who have subscribed to those hashtags. You can add a hashtag to a List. That way, multiple hashtags feed into one timeline.

2) Join the Educator focused group: https://tinyurl.com/joinedutooters;

3) Add @edutooter@chirp.social to every education post to reach hundreds of educators. You can reach many more educators by adding the italicized, highlighted part to every post you want lots of educators to see. Watch video how-to or read how-to.

4) Boost anything you find of interest, and follow people. You can import the EduTooters/K12Librarian lists into your FollowingList (Preferences on Mastodon web browser). There are over 400 and growing every day.

5) Post a hashtag rich #Introduction so people can find you more easily, and pass these instructions on to other educators you know. Add a profile pic and hashtag rich bio. You can pin multiple items to your profile, so don’t be afraid to do that.

6) Check out these “tootorials” at https://go.mgpd.org/feditoots for quick tips and videos. I have a few video tutorials there, including how to import Following lists, set up your profile and bio, etc. 🙂

Want to learn more about Creating Groups?

There are two nifty groups you can create. 

Option #1: Chirp.Social offers some great features; read more about it in this blog entry.

Option #2: Guppe Groups.

Both group creation tools make it easy to connect with people. They sign up for the group, then any messages sent to the group address (e.g. @edutooter@chirp.social) get sent to everyone who has signed up for that. 

Joining Chirp Social Group, @EduTooter@Chirp.Social

Ready to join a group? While hashtags are the best way to share and connect, you can also invite people to join an existing group. There are quite a few available online already. For educators, the main groups that I’m aware of include these below. Simply add the address below to every toot/post you send that’s K-12 education appropriate.

• @edutooter@chirp.social

Conducting Hashtag Searches

 Adding hashtag searches, groups, and people to a list is a way to quickly see content you are interested in. This can be complicated since it varies by what Mastodon instance you are on. I’m on Qoto.org, so I have the ability to add hashtags and groups to a list. This is really cool and looks like this:

Unfortunately, looking on my mas.to Mastodon instance, following hashtags and adding them to a list isn’t possible (at least, not so I can see). This means you’re really just stuck following hashtags in your Mastodon SEARCH box, and then waiting for the results to pop up.

Unless I’m missing something, searching and finding stuff in vanilla Mastodon…well, stinks. It intentionally goes out of its way to NOT show you anything. That’s why following groups like @edutooters@chirp.social is so helpful.

Read the Rest of My Tutorials and View Videos

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