The Hashtag Trick

Twitter chats, conferences and EdCamps are some of the best PD around, in my opinion.  The learning is great and often you don't even need to be at the conference because there is almost always a hashtag (#) to follow so you can get the learning virtually on Twitter.

 

This is all great until you are the one tweeting and it comes time to remember the hashtags and/or remember to add them to your post.  I also find it can take up time to add them in and in the moment you might miss other stuff - especially if you are tweeting quotes from a keynote.

Fear not!  I have a hack - Keyboard shortcuts. 

Shortcuts allow you to type something short that will be automatically changed into longer text.  For example...last weekend I was at the #EdTechTeam #OntarioSummit.  I set up a keyboard shortcut to "etton" and it would replace with the proper hashtags (you just need to tap the spacebar after the shortcut).  

My friend David Carruthers loved it and decided to use the simple "ht" and said he was going to replace the long text each time he was using a hashtag consistently.

Caveat: make sure the shortcut is not something you might actually type of you run the risk that the replacement is made.  Eg. If I use "EN"as a shortcut for EverNote, I run the risk of turning my name, Jen Giffen, into JEverNote GiffEverNote.

How to do text replacement on iOS

1. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement. 
2. Tap the plus sign (+) in the top right corner.
3. In the Phrase field, enter the full text 
4. Below that, enter the shortcut you want to use.  

Check out this video I made:

Sorry Android users....no Android phone in the house to get the steps...I will add when I can - or let me know how in the comments.

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