Category: Twitter

Discussion, educational technology, Faculty Development, Informal Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Social Media, Twitter

Why Include Twitter in Your Personalized Learning Network (PLN)?

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Signing up for a Twitter account is one of the best things I’ve done for my professional learning. You may be thinking, no way! Especially with the negative attention given to politics on Twitter. However, we just need to be careful who our friends are – or in this case who we choose to follow. Alec Couros, educational technology and media professor and researcher at the University of Regina, Canada, explains it well in the video linked below.

Using Twitter effectively for education – with Alec Couros

In 2010, as an assignment at Arkansas Leadership Academy, I set up my Twitter account and began following educational leaders. I was skeptical at first. Then gradually I started following more and more leaders in education and educational technology, and I began to see the value in using Twitter to connect with educational leaders around the world. Currently, I’m following 2,222 educators, administrators, and researchers. I’m not much of a tweeter myself unless I’m participating in a live Twitter chat. Mostly, I’m a liker and a lurker when I have a few free minutes. I use the “like” feature to sort of bookmark things I find useful or inspiring, and I usually don’t have to lurk for long to find something valuable. This tweet says it nicely. 

Would you like to know more about Twitter for educators? Below are several articles on the topic.

Tiny Bursts of Learning

Edublog: Building Your PLN

Use of Twitter across educational settings: a review of the literature

If you are a Twitter user but haven’t tried Tweetdeck, consider trying it out. It’s great for following several hashtags at once and for participating in fast-moving live chats. 

Reference:

d_mulder (2016, October 23). Teachers on Twitter are the best. Take 5 minutes to read and reflect; what will you learn from your colleagues today? Approach Twitter with a growth mindset, think of it as “I have five minutes…what can I learn today?” [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/d_mulder/status/790298591440936960

PD, PLN, Social Media, Twitter

Twitter Hashtags & Tweetdeck

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app-apple-application-58639While attending Arkansas Leadership Academy in 2010, I registered for my Twitter account and began following leaders in education. Now I follow approximately 1300 mostly educators, and I have participated in a few chats. However, I hadn’t ever tried using Tweetdeck. Usually, I would just check Twitter now and then on my phone and came up with many useful things that way. I didn’t do much sharing, but I hope to change that. Now, using Tweetdeck makes it much easier to manage, especially during a quickly moving chat.

So, I started following six hashtags on Tweetdeck including #edchat, #edtechchat, #highered, #EduAr, #edtechafterdark, and #ISTE17. #edchat is really all things education. #edtechchat and #edtechafterdark have more of technology focus. #EduAr is where I can connect with other educators in Arkansas. #highered is focused on teaching and learning in higher education. #ISTE17 will provide a continuous conversation of all that’s going on in San Antonio during this year’s conference. That’s a good mix for me.
It didn’t take long to find several valuable ideas and resources. EdTech for Higher Education posted a list of 50 must-read higher ed blogs on #highered. Nice to have a resource like that that kind of weeds out some blogs and lists some of the better ones. Also on #highered, I found a blog called Teaching Academia that looks interesting. In this post, the author is reflecting on developing content for her online course. Lately, I’ve been considering trying my hand at some academic writing, and I found a post on #highered with a video explaining the different levels of acceptance from editors. That was new information for me.
An educator that I’ve followed for some time posted a paper.li which I’ve never looked at before. It looks like an interesting tool that I may try out for curating and sharing current news in education and educational technology.
In addition, I picked up a couple resources from Free Tech 4 Teachers. One was a list of three resources for images and videos in the public domain. They happen to be ones I’ve used in the past, but a couple of them had fallen off my radar.  Another was a citation tool called Cite It In – something new to try out.
When I first signed up for my Twitter account, I would never have dreamed how beneficial it would be for me professionally. I’ve been picking up resources and ideas on Twitter for years. Now as I plan to step up my game on the sharing and interacting side of it, I can only imagine that it will be even more valuable to me. For just-in-time PD, I really can’t think of anything better. This quote from Dave Mulder rings true for me.

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Blogs, Personal Learning Networks, PLN, Social Media, Twitter

Reflection – Facebook Groups, Twitter, Diigo, Blogs

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

My initial reaction to joining Facebook, Twitter, Diigo, and a blog to use in this course was that of excitement. As a Facebook and Twitter user, I’m pretty comfortable with those platforms. I used Blogger for my past learning log for my MET, so I decided to use it again. I haven’t used Diigo before, but I used Delicious in the past. I got away from using it though and have been curating my resources in One Note ever since. I like what I’ve seen with Diigo so far, and I’m excited to use it in my work. 

When I attended Arkansas Leadership Academy in 2011, our training facilitator had us all set up Twitter accounts and start developing a PLN. I have to say that is one of the very best things I’ve done. I follow about 1300 people, and whenever I have a few free minutes, I just log in and learn something new. I am mostly a lurker, but have joined in a chat once in a while. I’m hoping to do that more as a result of taking this class. This was my first time to useTweet Deck, and it will certainly make chats easier to follow. I have lots of teacher friends on Facebook. They share things there from time to time. I enjoy some blogs and Pinterest as well. 

When I taught fourth grade, I used KidBlog for our class to share writing and math stories with each other. It was a closed environment, and I kept a close eye on it. I also used it with my virtual fourth grade class. The students really enjoyed it.

Our office has a blog that we hope to utilize more for sharing with and among faculty. We just need to make it a priority. There are some faculty that indicated on a survey that would like training on setting up a PLN with Twitter. I plan to do that, but may need to do something asynchronous to reach people. So I’m excited about the Twitter resources provided. I think our office could also benefit from using a Diigo group.

During this course, I’m hoping to become more frequent with sharing on social media. I’m pretty cautious and tend to overthink things, so I don’t share as much as I’d would like. I’m also looking forward to sharing with my colleagues the benefits and best practices of using social media with students.