Twitter Chats are an awesome opportunity to engaged in some right on time, relevant professional development! By simply searching for the hashtag of your choice, you are immersed into deep conversations with educators all around the world that are just as passionate about what you are! They are fast paced and full of goodness so you have to keep up! A great tool to do this is TweetDeck. This allows you to monitor your Twitter feed, notifications, messages and Twitter Chats in an easy format! Try it out if you haven't. It literally takes 2 seconds to set up.
This challenge came right on time! Last night I participated in the #squirrelschat. This is a chat facilitated by different educators once a month that are a part of the Alpha Squirrels. Alpha Squirrels are educator ambassadors for the Reflector App. This chat takes place on a Thursday night at 8pm EST once a month.
I have also recently participated in the #gaetc17 chat within the past week as well. What I love about participating in different Twitter chats is that you gain the perspective of educators all around the world. Now that Twitter has a capacity of 280 characters vs 140, the conversation that takes place has even more content and meaning.
The list of Twitter Chats that are out there is HUGE! Cybraryman has curated an extensive list that I can't wait to delve into and explore. Another awesome thing about these chats is that you can start your own! All you need is a hashtag and the conversation can take off! Recently, I was able to train one of our assistant superintendents to host her own Twitter Chat with her region principals. It's taken off and she's now had 2 of them! She used TweetDeck to facilitate her chat and schedule her posts. Doing so, she finds, allows her to be more engaged in the chat as opposed to worrying about posting the questions/prompts and then being active in the conversation. It's really been an amazing opportunity!
Have you tried a Twitter Chat before? What are your favorites?
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