Embedding a twitter feed in a Learning Management System (Moodle)

Post date: Feb 21, 2017 5:55:16 PM

In my first year of teaching ECON1950 Principles of Macroeconomics at TRU, in my course evaluations students indicated that they wanted more real world examples and applications of the material we were covering in class. One of the ways I addressed this deficiency in future offerings of the course was to create a twitter hashtag (#ECON1950) to share articles and news stories relevant to macroeconomics with my students. To make this feed accessible to all students, I embedded the feed in the Moodle site for my course (Moodle is the Learning Management System used at TRU for courses delivered on-campus). In this way, the twitter feed for that hashtag was visible for all students every time they visited the course site. What follows is a step-by-step guide to embedding a twitter feed in Moodle; though, this probably will also work for other Learning management Systems so long as they allow you to write html code. Here is what the end product looks like for my Economics of Climate Change course that I am currently teaching:

STEP1: Begin sending tweets on a hashtag selected for your course, e.g., #ECON1950. Be sure to check the hashtag in advance to ensure it is available. After sending a few tweets, enter your hashtag in the twitter search box

STEP2: Click on the tab labelled “Latest”.

STEP3: Click on the 3-dots in the upper left-hand corner and select “Embed this search” from the drop down menu

STEP 4: Click “Create Widget” and copy [Ctrl-c] the resulting html code

S STEP 5: In your Moodle course site: click “Edit” on one of you’re the Moodle modules within your site (e.g., 7 September – 13 September), and select “Edit week” from the drop down menu

Tip: I usually create a module just for the twitter feed.

STEP 6: Click on the button that says “Show more buttons” when you hover the mouse over it

STEP 7: Select the html button (it looks like this <>). Paste the html code you copied in Step 5. Click “Save Changes”