Keeping up with the Twitter Times

For the last couple of months, I've been checking out a couple of free Twitter mash ups which automatically generate a daily online newspaper culled from the tweets of your followers and organised into different themes.

The Twitter Tim.es has an RSS feed attached to it and so I can star interesting links in my Google Reader account and see who has retweeted the post too.

e.g http://twittertim.es/joedale/rss.xml

Paper.li works in a slightly different way and notifies you of the latest issue via email. Clicking on the link provided takes you to your own personalised newspaper with stories, live links, video clips and images organised in different themed sections ... like a real newspaper!

Always an interesting read, I find it an ideal way of catching up with some of the main headlines from my Twitter stream for that day. The site lets you subscribe to others' papers too. Mine can be found at http://paper.li/joedale if you fancy a look.  

I was thinking also that the MFL Twitterati could create their own foreign language newspaper full of authentic resources for use in lessons by following a dedicated Twitter account MFLTimes and tweeting in French, German, Spanish etc about the topics they are currently covering. They may prefer to create a new account for this experiment to ensure a consistent approach and avoid the inclusion of their normal tweets which may be off-topic.

On the other hand, languages teachers could just follow @MFLTimes with their normal account and generate an MFL related newspaper based on their tweets instead. It would seem if they use the hashtag #MFLTimes, their tweets are more likely to be included in the final copy.

Please note I've protected the tweets on MFLTimes to avoid spam follows and the potential of inappropriate content featuring! As a result though, a dialogue box asking for login details will appear when you first visit paper.li/MFLTimes so just remember to click Cancel and you'll be fine.

Worth a try? Follow MFLTimes and we'll see what happens!

Comments

[Wizenedcrone]

I've very much enjoyed the digestibility of your paper.li updates and the unexpected treasures it often brings me.

The idea of a MFL newspaper with even more contributors really appeals. Simple, quick - and FREE! an excellent recipe, I think.

Joe, I've just sent a request to follow and I'm looking forward to the first edition of MFLTimes.

Fiona

[Joe Dale]

Thanks for your endorsement Fiona. It's certainly going to be an interesting experiment and could prove a valuable digest of cutting edge MFL thinking!

[Melissa Jones]

Hi, my name is Melissa Jones and I am currently enrolled in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to follow you blog for the next few weeks. At the conclusion I will be posting my comment on my blog page.

I just opened a twitter account, so all of this is pretty new to me.I have noticed when you have many followers it is hard to keep up with all the tweets. This seems like a good way to keep up with followers in a more organized way. I did have a chance to look at MFL Times Daily.I like the layout and it is full of information. This looks like something that I will definitely look more into.