Ease Your Way into Using Twitter for Professional Learning

I created a professional Twitter account using my school email address in August of 2011. It existed, unused, for about 8 months. I had no idea how or if I would ever use it. I honestly cannot remember why I even created it in the first place. That spring, I signed up to attend a conference called “Teaching the iGeneration.” The presenter, Bill Ferriter, a teacher in North Carolina, sent us a TO DO list in advance of the conference. There were several online tools he was going to show us how to use with kids and these tools required accounts be created. He was wise enough to have us create all of those accounts prior to arriving.

I tried using many of these new tools in my classroom the following school year. The most lasting take away from that conference, however, was an hour long Twitter introduction that Bill took us through. I am going to summarize the three ways that you can use Twitter professionally. These can be, but are not necessarily, a progression. You could, if you choose to, just live in phase 1 and get everything you might want/need out of Twitter.

Phase 1 - You Do Not Even Need a Twitter Account to Use Twitter.

You can jump on Twitter without ever having to login. Follow this link or type in twitter.com/search . This will bring you to a general Twitter search bar. You can type in the name of people or hashtags. For example if you go to Twitter Search and type in #VHWay you will see tweets from this school year sharing things happening around the building. There are hundreds of hashtags being used to focus tweets relevant to many areas in education. For example; #engchat, #MathEd, #musicedu, #scichat, #sschat, #physed, #ACTFL, #BusEdu - there are so many more.  So, if you're curious if there is a hashtag relevant to you ask me. If I do not know I will find out for you.   **You are a consumer of Twitter content without an account in this phase.

Phase 2 - There are a few people on here I want to hear from regularly.

I am not saying this will happen to you, but it might. If you follow a hashtag relevant to the building or your area you are likely to notice some people who share some pretty good stuff regularly. You might want to see everything they share on Twitter. These people are becoming a part of your Professional Learning Network (PLN). For example, if you search #edtech you might find a lot of people who retweet things from @rmbyrne (Richard Byrne) who has a BLOG called Free Tech for Teachers. But, when he tweets links to awesome free stuff he DOES NOT include any hashtags, therefore you might not see ALL of his awesome stuff. To follow him you would create a professional Twitter account (using your @d128 email address). You would go to his Twitter page and click Follow. He might be the only person you follow or maybe you also decide to follow this guy @JonGuillaumeVH too.  
**You are a consumer of Twitter content with an account in this phase.

Phase 3 - You might not think so but you definitely have something to share.

All of these great people you have now discovered on Twitter once nervously hit TWEET on their first public message. As you discovered, what they have to share is valuable, worthwhile, and maybe had an impact on you and your students. You have something to share and there is an audience for it. Perhaps it is just the story of what you and your students do. That is worth sharing. There is an audience in our community that would love to see/hear that story. Maybe those activities and/or experiences you create for your kids inspire a teacher in your area. You could become a valuable contributor to someone else's PLN. **You are both a consumer and a contributor with an account in this phase.

There is a rich, ongoing professional conversation happening on Twitter. You can take advantage of it in many ways. What is also great about it is that you can do it on your own schedule. You can visit as frequently or as infrequently as you'd like.

I hope you might dip your toe in and ask for some help/support if you like what you find. If you create a Twitter account at any point please share that with me so I can add you to our VHHS Twitter PLN list.