Twitter and Professional Development

Post date: Aug 9, 2012 4:49:10 PM

I am starting to experiment more with Twitter. Perhaps I am just 800 years old, but for some reason it just always confused me. How am I supposed to keep up with it? Do I just go to the site all the time? Can't it just be a part of my Google Reader along with everything else? There are so many things to read!!

I just discovered Tweetdeck.com,which is helpful--you can organize tweets into columns that you define. And, I'm starting to look into using both Twitter and Tweetdeck as professional development tools. I can follow specific peeps that I like (Jim Burke, what!). And, miracle of miracles, I'm starting to get hashtag chats. I know, I know, welcome to the future, Vanessa. But, it was HARD.

Anyway, #Edchat is something that everyone seems to love and recommend, so it's one of the things I'm starting with. Now, if I can just remember to actually log in sometimes, I'll be golden.

There are about 70 education chats working for specific focuses. There are several hundred hashtags used to identify education-specific tweets. #Edchat continues at noon and 7 p.m. Eastern each Tuesday with different topics. The topics are determined by a poll including five topics that is posted each Sunday and remains open until Tuesday. The No. 1 choice becomes the 7 p.m. topic, and the noon #Edchat covers the second-place topic. A team moderates each #Edchat to keep things moving and focused.

"How #Edchat connects educators" from Smartblogs.com