Twitter

=Let's get started building your PLN. =

__**Resources**__
Everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter: http://learning-now.wikispaces.com/TWITTER

Twitter Dictionary: http://www.twittonary.com/

__**Reflection**__
After a month with your Twitter account, reflect on your thoughts. How might Twitter make you a better educator? What questions still arise? What Twitter people have you found to follow? Have you found any hashtags for your area? Put your name on your reflection. The last time I used my twitter account was the evening of our in-service. Since then the account has been dormant. The twitter people I have found to follow are the other teachers at Spalding Catholic. No I have not found any hashtags in Family Consumer Science. Terri Duistermars

If I had the patience, I might be able to use Twitter to make me a better educator. However, I'm still mired in the 20th century, and it REALLY irritates me when people can't use proper grammar, punctuation, etc. That's on top of how irritating I find some of these people. (Am I coming off as not a nice person? That's one of the questions that arises!) The librarians I've found are too random; I still prefer my listserv for that--it deals with topics that are helpful to me. However, I actually have found several writers' groups and agents to follow, and I have even managed to add some of them to my RSS feed because the ones I find interesting have blogs. One hashtag I've found is #writers; another is #writers workshops. Judy Stokesberry

In the last month I have found an abundance of excellent reading material on Twitter for my professional development. It has also given me a glimpse into other teachers classrooms, which has been very beneficial for me, a first year teacher. Twitter will continue to keep me up to date on educational topics. I also use Twitter for lesson plan ideas. There are ideas and techniques out there that I might never have thought of on my own. I consume a lot of information from Twitter; however, I am still very hesitant to tweet. I have found two hashtags, #mathchat and #edchat. Dani DenOuden

After a month with your Twitter account, reflect on your thoughts. How might Twitter make you a better educator? What questions still arise? What Twitter people have you found to follow? Have you found any hashtags for your area? After a month on twitter I have found a lot of reaffirming voices in science education. I feel better hearing the "experts" say what i am attempting to do is what we should be doing. I have found a few new labs and tech ideas for the classroom but nothing earth shattering as of yet. My question is what do I post? Do I search out research/blogs/articles etc just to post or retweet? I am following jerridkruse, Drake science ed instructor mrsebiology, good source of information, padgets, iowa teacher, and fnoschese, math and science teacher. Plus I following NSTA, NSF, Science Fridays, CERN. I have a ton of hastags but I mostly following #edchat, #mathchat, #ruraledchat, #agedchat, #ntchat, #nsta, #scichat, #iowacore, several others but they don't have a lot a traffic Doug

I have been on Twitter for a while longer than a month. I started using it when Mary and Brenda went to their workshop last fall. I can see that Twitter has the potential to me a better educator in some of the same ways that Dani and Doug mentioned above. It gives a glimpse into what other teachers do, so it affirms what I am doing or gives me fresh ideas for what to do. On the other hand, I can see that using Twitter can be distracting, so I've learned to just check it a couple times a day, rather than the constant stream of messages coming up on my Tweet Deck. I've found a couple hundred people to follow, not all helpful, so I'm learning to follow hashtags to get more timely messages. My favorites are #comments4kids, #spcatholic, #sschat, #scichat and other short term hashtags that come up like the one Kris and I made up at TSA, #tsaia Denise

I find that I need to clear a block of time when I go on Twitter because if I start following suggested links, I get lost in it all - and come back to reality sometimes an hour later. I have really been making use of my Diigo account to bookmark interesting sites, but now when do I get back to the bookmarks? The hashtags I have been following are #edchat, #journchat, #apstylechat, #edtech, #FETC. Used to follow #educhat, but found #edchat to be better. Would like to find more, so I'm still searching. Had fun making the TSA one with Denise - would like to do that while at a conference. Think this would be useful for the Catholic schools in our diocese to share? Kris