Today we had the pleasure of two guest speakers who shared their experiences with using social media as a professional learning tool and as a way to connect with other educators. An avoider of many forms of social media, I recently resurrected my Twitter account and have decided to to do some of my own experimentation with using Twitter.
I am posting this as a means to create some accountability to myself as well as to reflect on my experiences using social media.
Week #1
I tackled the first hurdle, publishing my first tweet as an educator; my finger hovering over the tweet button, eyes closed as I stabbed blindly at the small blue bird icon. And just like that, I had entered into another realm. I was officially a tweeterer… Is that even a term?
Next step: Adding to my lists
First: hashtags
- #blendedlearning
- #engchat
- #onlinelearning
- #distributedlearning
- #edtech
Second: Twitter handles
- @blendedlearningnetwork
- @nelliemuller
- @insdpire
- @thinklangley
- @uconnect35
Third: Blog addresses
1. lornacampbell.org
2. Veletsianos.com
3. Couros.ca/blog
These were a lot harder to find, but I’ll be keeping my eye on my feed in hopes of finding more to follow…
Now to see how well this app works …
#postingfrommyphoneforthefirsttime
Hi Leanne! I just set up TweetDeck and it is really helpful. I’ve got columns with multiple similar hashtags so it isn’t just the one stream.
Thanks! I set up TweetDeck and it has really helped with organizing hashtags.
Thank you for sharing your experience about using Twitter for the first time. We are certainly in the same boat. Your blog posted really outlined the anxious feeling I have as well about being an educator using social media. As the presenter explained, it is important to simply know what is appropriate and what isn’t when using a social media platform. I think it is fantastic that you’ve taken the ‘scary’ leap and embraced social media. Great job!
Thank-you for your feedback! Here is a link to a great post on the basics of Twitter. Twitter for teachers