Twitter, SaskEdChat, and More

I have been an active Twitter user for just over 10 years now. On my personal account, I mainly keep up with the surprisingly active CFL fan community, enjoy comedy Tweets, and read about the news. Although I recognize that Twitter can sensationalize news stories and provide a very personalized feed that shows me biased perspectives on most topics, I have still enjoyed the platform and I try to use it to seek out and be exposed to experiences, knowledge, and perspectives that I may not otherwise hear in my day-to-day life. 

Throughout my years of using Twitter, I have also come across the strong Saskatchewan education community many times. As a result, I made sure to create the professional account shown above shortly after being accepted into the Education After Degree program last spring. Follow me here! However, besides retweeting a couple of school division Tweets and posting a few thoughts on my pre-internship in March, I hadn't properly delved into the professional education side of Twitter until the Sask Ed Chat my EDTC 300 class participated in last Thursday.

I found the Sask Ed Chat to be beneficial and engaging, though surprisingly fast-paced! Although I am an active user on my personal account, evidence by the over 50,000 Tweets I have liked, I have never been someone who regularly Tweets. My only experience with my mentions and notifications being busy was when I had a Tweet get nearly 300 likes, 30 retweets, and 40 or so responses in a very small-scale viral moment last summer. As a result, the pace of the Sask Ed Chat was quite overwhelming! I think this was largely due to using TweetDeck, as I had never used it before and found it to be quite an adjustment to keep up with several columns at once. My computer also had some trouble keeping up (and froze a couple times while the fan whirred furiously) which probably didn't help. 

As for the actual chat, I think it was a great way to connect with other educators and to challenge my thinking on particular topics. While it was a little daunting to contribute my thoughts in a discussion with experienced educators, I appreciated having the opportunity to hear different perspectives. Thinking about things in new ways is what will help me grow as a future educator, so I appreciated being challenged to think deeply and critically about my answers. After creating reflective responses, it felt validating to have my thoughts liked, retweeted, or responded to by educators participating in the chat. I can definitely see myself continuing to use Twitter throughout my career as a way to connect with other educators, to develop as a professional, and to expand my PLN. 

In terms of using Twitter in the classroom, I can see myself using it to share class or school activities with families or to teach social media skills and online safety strategies to students. I have seen many viral Tweets where educators ask people to share the post so that their students can track how far something can go when shared on the internet, and I think that is a valuable teaching experience. Ultimately, I look forward to continuing to learn about the professional opportunities that Twitter affords to educators throughout this class and exploring the possibilities in my future career.