Embedding Twitter in your course

There are a few very simple steps to get Twitter embedded in your course.  You do not need to understand HTML or any coding to do this successfully.

On Twitter

Step 1: Go to twitter.com/settings/widgets then click on “create new”, then click on “profile”.

Step 2: In the box, “what would you like to embed”, type @username (For example – to follow TRU’s twitter feed, you’d simply type @thompsonriversu and then click on enter)

Step 3: Choose Embedded timeline

Step 4: Click on the copy code option

 

In your Moodle course

To put this in your course feed, there are a few options.

As a Block (or elsewhere in Moodle): A Twitter feed can be put in as a block or in one of the topics for your course.

Step 1: Go to your Moodle course and turn editing on

Step 2: On the bottom left of your Moodle course, click on Add a block

Step 3: The block will then appear with the title “New HTML Block”

Step 4: In that new block, click on the edit widget and choose “Configure (New HTML Block) Block”

Step 5: Rename the block – for example, “ABC Twitter Feed”

Step 6: You now need to paste the code from Twitter to the HTML view in the block.  Within Moodle, there are two editors: and you need the HTML editor, and need to click on that button to paste the code from Twitter into it.  Here is the icon to click:

Step 7: Once you’ve clicked the <> button, you can then paste the text from Twitter and then click Update and Save Changes.

Once complete, you should see the twitter feed in your course.  A challenge with this feed is that it is a very long scroll of 10 or so Tweets.

 

The same feed can also be put into any number of the modules in a course, but the appearance will be similar in that it will be a feed of 10 or so tweets.

 

As a Twitter Search

Twitter uses hashtags as a way of allowing individuals to find information.  Thus in Twitter, a search for #canadianpolitics would result in Tweets that had that particular hashtag, but only tweets with that hashtag would be found.

Step 1: To to twitter.com/settings/widgets  then click on “create new”, then “search”

Step 2: Complete the search as you’d like (in other words the tag that makes sense to you – it could be a tag you plan to use when tweeting or retweeting things for the class)

Step 3: Choose “Create Widget” and then the HTML code will display.  Copy that code and leave the Twitter window open for now.

 

Step 4: To put this in Moodle, you can paste the HTML you have copied in the Block or elsewhere in Moodle that you’d like it.  The benefit of using a search term is that the display in your Moodle course will be much better; however, keep in mind that it is not from one source and that any tweet using that hashtag will feed into your course.