Have you ever wanted to try something really bad, but you don’t because you are afraid of the unknown? That is how I felt about Twitter for several years. I created a Twitter account when I first heard about tweeting on television. I did the basic account creation stuff, and that was about it for a couple of years. I didn’t really see the point in it or even understand how it worked. I stuck with Facebook because it was what I was comfortable with, and I knew it like the back of my hand. Over the past year, I have started to really pick up the frequency of tweets with classroom pictures, school events, and shout outs. This past Summer, I really learned how effective of a network Twitter can be if you know how to use it. I took an Education Technology class, and we had to participate in educational chats on Twitter several times for assignments. I’m not going to lie, I was seriously overwhelmed by the pace of the chats, what to read, who to pay attention to, and how to keep up with everything in the chat the very first time I joined.
The second time was a little bit easier though. I voiced my struggles through tweets on my account and got several suggestions that really helped. The best suggestion was to use Tweetdeck, which allows you to set up columns of different things going on with Twitter, so you can have them all on your screen at one time. You can organize it however you want. I have a couple people who I follow religiously, so their feed comes up on those columns, then I have any chat I am involved in, mentions of me, my news feed, and my notifications in other columns. It’s a little crazy at first, but you get used to it, and it makes everything so much easier to follow. There are 15 different categories you can set up.
The other piece of advice that helped me during chats was to not try to focus on every single comment made. In the first few minutes, you tend to find the people who are talking about what you want/need to hear. If you stick to following those people throughout the chat, the whole process is much easier. I have met several people through chats, who I follow regularly, and have shared so much priceless information with me. One of the coolest things that happened was when I got to meet several of them when I went to ISTE this summer. Twitter has helped me change the way I teach, keeps me motivated, and inspires me to be a better teacher. I highly recommend giving it a try and fight through the fear of the unknown!
Til next time…
BRI
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