The whole concept of Twitter chats made me nervous at first. I decided that to start off, I just wanted to observe. Edutopia hosted a chat about letter grades, and the topic was something that interested me. I decided to just hang out and see how everything works. That was a great experience and introduction to the world of Twitter Chats. The pace was pretty fast, but thanks to using Tweet Chat, I was able to pause and slow things down as I needed to. It was also a great way to see the format.
Over the course of the past week, I decided to jump in and be a part of the conversation. I participated in two Twitter chats, and I chose to participate in chats that are relevant to my subject area. Both chats were through #2ndaryela. The first chat dealt with utilizing an article of the week while the second chat focused on implementing games and puzzles in the ELA classroom. I loved the fact that both of the chats were smaller and easy to keep up with. Brynn Allison (The Literary Maven) has a website where she posts ahead of time what the chats will be about. I was able to review any articles posted and read the questions, so I could prepare my answers. Having the questions ahead of time enabled me to fully participate in the discussion. The fact that the chats lasted a half hour was a bonus. I hate feeling like I have to be glued to my computer during the evening when it is family time.
The first chat I participated in went smoothly. However, the second time I ran into a little problem. I was at home ready to go with my thought out answers. I sent out my warning tweet that I might be bombarding my followers feeds. I moved over to Tweet Chat, typed in my hashtag...and the stream wouldn't load. I frantically kept trying! I switched to my phone and no luck. The chat had started and I got overwhelmed. I couldn't remember the other options to use instead of Tweet Chat, and I didn't feel like I had the time to look it up. My solution was to type in the hashtag and sift through everything that way. From time to time I would go to the page of the host, so I could see which question we were actually on. Even though that was definitely more complicated, I survived. I still came away with some ideas and I was able to contribute to the conversation.
After participating in both chats, I was able to walk away with some great resources and some new educators to add to my PLN. All of the participants were extremely helpful and encouraging. They were willing to share ideas and even some resources they had created themselves or found. I started following the hosts of the chats along with some of the participants. It is reassuring to see others educators who are similar to you - those who want to create and implement new and engaging ideas, but maybe they aren't sure how to do it. It was nice to actually feel like I contributed and helped in some way.
If you find your self asking the question, "What the heck is a Twitter Chat?" here is a great video to get started.
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYou chose a great way to ease into chatting on Twitter. You can really learn a great deal by just observing, but, of course, you always get more from the experience when you fully participate. I am glad you were still able to have a successful chat after TweetChat failed!
RE: "It is reassuring to see other educators who are similar to you - those who want to create and implement new and engaging ideas, but maybe they aren't sure how to do it. It was nice to actually feel like I contributed and helped in some way."
That's the great thing about PLNs! Sometimes we benefit from the knowledge of others and sometimes we help others with our knowledge. Together we are smarter than anyone of us alone!
Tweet on!
Dr. Dell