The Oxford English Dictionary defines Twitterpated as 1. Love-struck, besotted; infatuated, obsessed. Also: excited, thrilled. That is not quite how I would describe my relationship with Twitter as it is a bit extreme. However, I am beginning to develop a positive relationship with Twitter. We are still taking it slow at this point and some days I feel like Bambi trying to get my footing.
If you check my Twitter account @MmeLBlair it will tell you I have been a member since October 2015. It is true. I remember signing up at the Saskatchewan Middle Years Convention in Saskatoon. I was inspired and ready to engage on Twitter… but it looks like my first post came on July 21, 2016 when my boyfriend (now, husband) and I took a trip to Toronto. In order to get a free copy of a photo, you had to tweet it. Anything for a free picture.
Fast forward to January 2022 when I started my graduate studies journey taking my first class with Katia. We were encouraged to start our Twitter journey. This is where my appreciation and more intentional use of Twitter began. The main use for my Twitter feed has been professional learning. I am making connections with many teachers, educational researchers and others who are passionate about student success. I read articles that make me reflect on my practices, inspire me to try new times or encourage me with a positive message. I retweet Tweets that are meaningful to me. The only content on my own that I share is related to the classes I am taking.
I am finding Twitter to be a great professional development tool which I intend to continue to pursue following this class. I have never taken part in a Twitter chat yet, that will be my next step.
A follow of my favourite handles are: @Teachergoals (inspirational quotes), @alicekeeler (Google expert), @TCEA (a mix of educational information) and Mme Lockhart (French Immersion teacher) to name of few.
I would love some feedback!
- Have you taken part in a Twitter chat? Can you provide some helpful hints?
- Who are some of your favourite educational handles to follow?
Happy Tweeting!
Thanks for the recommendations, Laurie. I just checked out, then followed one of your recommendations, Alice Keeler. I appreciate her Google knowledge, and she shares quite a few ed tech tools to help teachers. I’m currently trying out her “Google Slides: Roster to Slides” – an add on (or work around, depending how you do it) where you can create Google slides and assign slides to kids to work on. I do this quite a bit, so it’s great to have a build in feature that saves me from copying and pasting, and then inserting kids’ names into each slide. So great!