Today we are having our first Twitter chat with our school for this year. This was something we created to extend the reach of our ability to communicate with students, families, and teachers. I view Twitter as a great tool for learning and having discussions. In the "micro-blogging" format, one must be concise and creative in order to get a point across to people reading the post. Plus...it is fun.
Twitter is being taken over by teachers. I am sure there are plenty of articles that can give you reasons; but, if you really want to know why then you need to sign up. I will give you my list of reasons, but I am just one person:
1) It is fun. Twitter is a blast.
2) It is easy. I signed up about a year ago. I then started following one person and then started following who they followed, then followed some more people. It was that easy.
3) You can tweak Twitter to meet your needs. I use it only for work. With that in mind, I follow other educators and chat with folks about topics that I want to learn more about or fine tune my understanding. If something doesn't meet that criteria then I move on or away from it.
4) It is also easy to share articles and information. At a school I worked at, we would email articles and start and email thread discussion of the topic. With Twitter we can have a chat or I can send the article and just ask for responses.
In my opinion, words I try to avoid using, I would say that Twitter is one of the BEST ways to tailor PD to meet your needs. Think about it. For years, I would listen to teachers complain (I was guilty of it too), "Why do we all have to sit through this?" Now by signing up for a FREE online tool, a teacher can create their own little PROFESSIONAL LEARNING NETWORK (PLN) to meet their needs at their level.
How awesome is that?
I am just saying, this is a great tool for teachers to use.
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