Ah Twitter. The new-ish networking site that has evolved from constant annoying Facebook-like status updates ("I'm toasting my bread", "I'm buttering my toast", "I'm eating my toast") to a useful microblogging tool. I must admit, when I first joined with a personal account 614 days ago (thanks whendidyoujointwitter.com!) my sole interest was in following a few of my techie friends and legally stalking celebrities (yay @EmersonDrive!) It was fun, it was a novelty and I quickly ran out of things to tweet since everyone who bothered to follow me back (aside from those pesky adult entertainment spammers) were already my friends on Facebook. I saw no need to duplicate descriptions of my whereabouts or thoughts on life. And let's face it I'm not exactly @aplusk with four million+ followers.
Since re-joining the Twitter community with a professionally focused account exactly 27 days ago (again thanks to whendidyoujointwitter.com for that information!), I re-discovered the value in Twitter. Primarily, over my past 137 tweets (as of this post), I've networked with other educators, posted links to interesting content, shared thoughts on 21st century learning and learned TONS from others in my PLN (professional learning network). Thanks to Tweet3d I've created a Tweet Cloud that identifies what my most tweeted about topics have been.
I've also had a chance to see how some educators have chosen to integrate Twitter into their lessons -- a concept that I, unfortunately, did not think of introducing to my students during my teaching career. However, I see it as an extremely valuable tool, and cannot wait to share the idea with some of my former colleagues.
Despite my official status of 614 days on Twitter, I'm still considered a fairly green Twitter newbie -- apparently also known as a Twewbie, a Twurzel or, as my husband sees it, a Twit. Confused yet? I know I have been throughout this re-introduction to the microblogging world. (It took me forever to discover the twitter meaning of a "hashtag" -- my experience of teaching high school students led me down a different thought process on that one!)
For all those out there who have yet to join the Twitter world, I strongly encourage you to do so. For those fearful of being an obvious newbie, I recommend Twitter 101 as a starting point.
Happy Tweeting! (Just watch out for that blue whale -- he usually means trouble!)
Vanessa
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