Twitter for your own Professional Development

Social media is not only great to use in your classroom, but it is a fabulous way to collaborate, find solutions to problems and get inspiration from other teachers. I’ve been a big resister to Twitter from the start. What is a #hashtag and why is everyone tweeting about what they ate that morning? I absolutely refused to get on the band wagon. I broke down once last year and created an account, I got one tweet and I thought that was enough. I really believed this whole Twitter hype would die down and be replaced with something more useful and professional. It is only recently that I’ve begun to notice the Twitter icon at every educational conference I attend or on every EdTech webpage I browse through. My colleagues were also starting to share articles and ideas with me that they found through Twitter. I now knew Twitter was not going away and I needed to find out what this whole thing was about.

Step 1:
I needed to educate myself with the language. This article was a good place to start. It gives a simple introduction to the main lingo and explains some of the more advanced vocabulary, which I’m not quite ready for yet, but it will be a good reference in the future.

http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/09/15/a-list-twitters-language/#!ufebc

Step 2:
I needed to learn about how to set up my Twitter account in the most effective way. In this online workshop from Adobe Educate, Nicole Dalesio explains why she uses Twitter as an elementary teacher. It will also give you some tips for a more effective Twitter experience.

http://edex.adobe.com/professional-development/workshop/byb-Twitter-And-You/

Step 3:
I needed to start tweeting. It’s one week now and I have 14 followers. That’s not too bad considering I’ve only tweeted 4 times. However, I’ve found tons of articles and followed some interesting discussions on everything to do with education. I’m now checking Twitter daily and I’m starting to understand what the hype was all about.

You can follow me @sarahedtech