My top ten tweets of 2023

Last year I posted my top ten tweets for 2022,  and I did the same in 20212020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016. It was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

However Twitter is no longer what it was. I stopped using the Twitter in September 2023, as it was no longer a place I wanted to be, and lots of others were thinking and doing the same.

I will admit to visiting the site now and again, but I am glad I left. Still not fully engaged with Threads and Bluesky as alternatives.

My top ten tweets of 2021

Last year I posted my top ten tweets for 2020 and I did the same in 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016. It was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

So looking back first…

The top tweet back in 2016 was this one for #WednesdayWisdom

Whilst top tweet for 2017 was this one from the 2017 ALT Conference and it was my sketchnote of Bonnie Stewart’s keynote on openness.

The top tweet back in 2018 was this one about the newly revamped WHSmith at Bristol Temple Meads complete with storage cage!

The most popular tweet of 2019 was this one about keeping the old Twitter.

Alas the hack didn’t last too long so we have to use the new Twitter.

In 2020, the most popular tweet was this one, with me reminiscing when WHSmith in Bristol went all Dexter.

Okay back to the last twelve months, here are my top ten ten tweets of 2021.

In tenth place was a tweet from my #JuneEdTechChallenge which asked us to tweet about the VLE in my life, I referred back to the VLE is Dead debate which had happened back in 2009.

At number nine was a mention about rebooting a podcast I do on my elearning stuff blog.

At eight was a post to a link about low-bandwith online teaching.

The seventh most popular tweet of mine was a repost of a tweet from a few years ago about the the internet of things and how coffee machines connected to the internet would…. well see below.

In at number six was a post of mine about some blog posts I had written about online teaching and learning. It was pinned to my profile for most of the year which probably helped with its popularity.

Fifth place was this tweet from me about how ill I had been in October with Covid-19.

I didn’t use the Twitter when I was ill, didn’t do very much at all.

The tweet at number four was a shoutout to Lawrie who is a star.

The third most popular tweet of mine was reminding people that they could wear masks and didn’t need to be told to wear masks.

The tweet that came second was this one about the original Jisc Digital Leaders Programme.

My most popular tweet of 2021 was this replying to another post about empty shelves. It happens so often in my Sainsbury’s that they have had special shelf fillers printed so the shelves don’t look empty.

My top ten tweets of 2020

Last year I posted my top ten tweets for 2019 and I did the same in 2018, 2017 and 2016 which was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

So the most popular tweet of 2019 was this one about keeping the old Twitter.

Alas the hack didn’t last too long so we have to use the new Twitter.

So in 2020, my tenth most popular tweet was this one, a response to one about signage in the libraries.

The photo was from an April Fool we did at the library in Gloucestershire College. What was interesting was that it didn’t work, no one noticed the new signs or paid them any attention,.

Though it should be said we never had a problem with swimming in the library again.

The ninth most popular tweet of mine was from an event I attended in February on trans national education and I posted a sketchnote.

The tweet at number eight was about the lack of a door in Matt Hancock’s home office.

The seventh most popular tweet was a picture of Buckingham Palace!

It was a response to an original New York Post tweet that has now been deleted. It talked about the UK Christmas covid-19 planning with a picture of Paris.

Number six, was a link to a story about how students realised they could game an assessment as it was been graded by an AI and not a person.

Wasn’t cheating, it was just doing what was required to get top marks.

Fifth most popular tweet was about shopping centre clocks.

Fourth most popular tweet was another tweet in response to that original New York Post tweet that has now been deleted. It talked about the UK Christmas covid-19 planning with a picture of Paris.

Luckily someone managed to get a screengrab.

The third most popular tweet was about The Sovereign Centre shopping centre, which appears to be chasing the title of the UK’s Worst Shopping Centre…

Back in January I misread a tweet from Stephen Fry and that was the most popular tweet at number two.

So my top tweet  of 2020 was me reminiscing when WHSmith in Bristol went all Dexter.

My top ten tweets of 2019

GWR HSTLast year I posted my top ten tweets for 2018 and I did the same in 2017 and 2016 which was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

The top tweet back in 2016 was this one for #WednesdayWisdom

Whilst top tweet for 2017 was this one from the 2017 ALT Conference and it was my sketchnote of Bonnie Stewart’s keynote on openness.

The top tweet back in 2018 was this one about the newly revamped WHSmith at Bristol Temple Meads complete with storage cage!

So in 2019, my tenth most popular tweet was this one about my son appearing on BBC Points West whilst working at Bristol Temple Meads as a GWR Apprentice.

In ninth place was a nostalgic tweet about a steam train visiting Weston-super-Mare ten years ago in July.

I did tweet a lot about the past this year, and will do less of it next year.

At number eight was a tweet about the phrase “digital detox” which gets bandied about a lot when people feel they need to take a break from services such as Twitter. If you feel you need to take a break, you probably do, but is it necessary to tell everyone about it?

Seventh was about about an incident at Oxford Circus. The tweet was picked up by some news outlets and my photo appeared on a news website.

The sixth tweet was about WHSmith in Bristol being covered in plastic last February.

I did find this reply amusing….

The reason was less worrying, it was because they were putting the Post Office into WHSmith.

The tweet at number five was one about  great women in edtech from March for International Women’s Day.

Fourth was another nostalgic tweet about the #140conf Twitter Conference  I attended in 2009 and was on a panel session with some great people.

And now the top three, with the third tweet was an early morning tweet celebrating that GWR were now using old HSTs as commuter trains, so we had more seats and faster trains.

At number two was a tweet about the revamped WHSmith in Weston-super-Mare.

So the most popular tweet of 2019 was this one about keeping the old Twitter.

So what does this tell us? Very little.

My top ten tweets of 2018

WHSmith at Bristol Temple MeadsLast year I posted my top ten tweets for 2017 and I did the same in 2016 which were interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

The top tweet back in 2016 was this one for #WednesdayWisdom

Whilst top tweet for 2017 was this one from the 2017 ALT Conference and it was my sketchnote of Bonnie Stewart’s keynote on openness.

My tenth most popular blog was a response to another tweet of mine which was responding to the question:

Men of Twitter, is there a woman that you look up to in your own field or in another one? Who is she and why does she inspire you?

The ninth most popular tweet was a response to a Jeremy Vine about tweeting and cyclists. My point was that signs don’t work!

The tweet at number eight was responding to the question:

Men of Twitter, is there a woman that you look up to in your own field or in another one? Who is she and why does she inspire you?

The seventh most popular tweet was my sketch note of Maren Deepwell’s keynote at the 2018 ALT Conference.

The tweet at number six was about Bristolian emoji.

https://twitter.com/jamesclay/status/1019686814536421377

Fifth tweet was a reply to Andy Ihnatko with a composed image of Andy with Beyonce on the International Space Station.

No real idea why the tweet at number 4 was so popular, it was just a complaint about some issues I was having with Twitter back in April.

The third tweet which saw The Range competing with WHSmith on shop floor tidiness.

Second most popular tweet was about a carpet, a carper in a WHSmith in the Bristol area.

My most popular tweet in 2017 was about the newly revamped WHSmith at Bristol Temple Meads complete with storage cage!

My top ten tweets of 2017

Bonnie Stewart KeynoteLast year I posted my top ten tweets for 2016 which was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular. The top tweet back then was this one for #WednesdayWisdom

So here are my top ten tweets of 2017, ranked by the number of times it was seen on Twitter.

My tenth most popular tweet was about the difference between teaching and learning.

Though we knew this all along… the ninth most popular tweet was a link to the Nature article on the myth of the digital native.

In eighth was a tweet about my favourite child book, The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton.

The seventh most popular tweet was the photographs I took when the first passenger service GWR Inter-City Express Train arrived at Weston-super-Mare.

I attended ALT’s annual conference and made some sketch notes, the sixth most popular tweet was my sketch of the keynote by Peter Goodyear.

Another tweet from that conference was the fifth most popular of the year and was a photograph of Josie Fraser receiving her Honorary Life Membership of ALT.

Fourth position was one towards the end of the year and the only @ reply in the top ten. Amy Pearlman had asked for some best follows for women in IT, HE and Tech. Looking at her profile and seeing she was from Philadelphia in the US, and knowing lots of fantastic women in this space from the UK I added some in a reply.

This response then went somewhat viral and lots of other people added their top follows, it got retweeted and liked a lot, so of course more people saw it and added more people to the list. It’s a fantastic list of some great women to follow on Twitter.

Third place goes to a temperate graph of the tube lines in London.

Last year a fair few photographs of WHSmith made the top ten, this year my second most popular tweet was about a cat in Boots

I did like this response to it.

So what was my top tweet for 2017, well it was another one from the ALT Conference and it was my sketchnote of Bonnie Stewart’s keynote on openness.

My longer thought piece on this keynote can be found on my e-learning blog.

Overall an interesting and delightful year on the Twitter for me.

My top ten tweets of 2016

WHSmithSo here are my top ten tweets of 2016, ranked by the number of times it was seen on Twitter.

In 10th, 9th, 8th and 7th position are some random tweets of photographs taken in various branches of WHSmith.

These tweets were re-tweeted by the amusing @WHS_Carpet Twitter account. If like me you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, WHSMith was a real high street institution, which though surviving today still seems to have lost its way somewhat.

My 6th most popular tweet was an image comic strip of a Dara O’Briain routine on video games.

I was surprised by how popular the 5th tweet was, which was about some great images from JD Hancock on the Flickr.

A reply to Google was number four.

I was disappointed that NERC did not name their boat BoatyMcBoatface, but I did like how they embraced the whole thing, as I said in my third most popular tweet.

A work tweet was number two…

And my most popular tweet of 2016 was a silly comment for #WednesdayWisdom