Twitter Mission: The Experience

I got involved in #EdChat today for the first time and it was super exciting! The feeling of throwing your thoughts out there for the world to see, and for more experienced people in your aspiring profession can be absolutely nerve-wracking. I participated with a long (20~min scroll through the search-feed of people who were using the hashtag, as well as through out one of my own thoughts on todays topic of integrating social media in the classroom. For the record, I think it would be very high risk, high reward. I also favorite-ed a plethora of others tweets, mostly ones that contained links, so I could go back at a later time and check them all out! Good thinking to me! And finally, I also favorite-ed tweets as a sign of respect and support to all the posts that I agreed with, and even retweeted some to spread their ideas!

Twitter Mission: Co-Op Mission

For this section of my Twitter mission, I need to follow 5 educators that I find interesting, that pull in your focus, and who share their knowledge in a great way.

1.) As soon as I saw the task for this segment of the Twitter mission, my mind went to one person: Bill Nye. Although, probably more of a celebrity than educator after his years on television, he was the first educator I know that made it fun to learn! His Twitter page is also worth a follow, due to his mass number of followers, his feed keeps full, and he stays up to date with all the latest scientific news.

2.) My second follow was my High School Tech Instructer @Kunseltech. Although he is no longer at my high school he is the one who seemed to single handedly bring a wave of technology into my school. He brought in a series of new machines in our "fab lab", as well as inspire me to pursue a teaching career. He shares numerous, interesting, educational links on his Twitter feed as well.

3.) The third new follow was Jerry Blumengarten, @cybraryman1 , from the previous blogged #EdChat mission. His ability to organize mass discussion to further the knowledge of thousands was mind-blowing for me. He possesses a great ability to point out several pressing issues weekly, as well as genuinely hear from all sides of the arguments surrounding these issues.

4.) Next, I decided to follow William Chamberlain. EducationWorld.com pointed me in his direction, when I was out of familiar Twitter-Educators. He was number one on their list due to his enthusiasm for active teaching, and really reaching his students. He is currently leading a very moving conversation on how to stream your classroom instruction using different tools.

5.) My final follow was my High School English Teacher, @MsHunt225. As I'm sure you've noticed, I am a fan from learning from people I am familiar with. The biggest help that this supplies is the simple fact that I know this person, I know she has real teaching experience; and doesn't have to live up to any high follower count of the famous Twitter-ers. Most of her shares are of her in-class activites; it's almost like a Pinterest board come to life.

Twitter Mission: #ntchat

The second twitter conversation that I researched and observed was the gathering of Twitter-Users, using the hashtag #ntchat; this stands for "New Teacher Chat". This #ntchat doesn't appear to be moderated by a single moderator or group of mods, so its seems a little bit more sporadic than @Cybraryman1 's #edchat. This Twitter Chat seems to have a higher participation and lower-learning curve; I assume this is because of just how many new teachers need all the extra-weekly advice they can get. Lisa Dabbs acts as the one who deals with Q and A's but this also seems more preset than #EdChat.

Twitter Mission: #EdChat

The first of two educational "world-wide" chats that I observed was moderated and facilitated by @Cybraryman1 , Jerry Blumengarten. Jerry would open up each #EdChat with a poll on polldaddy.com and supplied a list of topics for the daily discussion. The chats that I followed were "What are specific ways your school promotes & supports Professional Collaboration within & outside the school & district?" from 2/10/15 and "If we stripped out standardized testing & all it brings would many educators continue their resistance to Common Core" from 2/17/15. Jerry had his followers use the hashtag #EdChat, so that everyone could easily find and communicate their thoughts with eachother. He also had guest-tweeters on that were specialized in the topic, as well as provide useful links on the topics to stimulate conversation.

Twitter Mission: Welcome to the Twitter-Sphere!

So although I've had twitter for quite sometime now, I just in the past year started exploring the professional side of the Twitter-Sphere, with my new, professional account: @nf878810. Although, this account has non-work/school related tweets and retweets on it, like supplementing my sports and gaming addictions, but the account itself is rated G. It was very weird for me to not follow my "in-real-life" friends, but to follow educators, entertainers, scholars, etc. Also, although my name is not stated on my account, anyone who knows me can easily find me, and my picture is actually of myself; so I am not in too much of hiding.