Twitter!!

This week we really focused on Twitter and how it can be used in education. I have had a Twitter account for a few years now, but have personally never really used it very much. After listening to all of the great ways that Twitter can be used in education from Toby last week, I was excited to explore a little more/give it a chance. Twitter helps you stay connected to almost anyone from anywhere in the world. I love that all you need is a username and you can begin exploring! Before this week, I had never heard of TweetDeck. After adding TweetDeck, I can say it makes checking my Twitter a lot more interesting. I can follow certain chats that mention a certain #. I love that the different columns can make your Twitter feed so much more organized and easy to explore. I feel that if I would have known about TweetDeck before now, I would have used my Twitter account more often. I chose to follow #EdCampIA because I am attending the conference this Saturday and wanted to learn more and see what others had to say about the subject.

The one chat that I followed very closely was #IAEdChat. The main idea of this chat was about exceptional learners and how to help all of our students to be successful. By simply following this chat, I learned multiple strategies to help all students learn in the classroom. I think that anytime you can learn new teaching strategies, you should take advantage of that moment, which is exactly what I did. Many of the professionals who took part in this chat posted links to very interesting and useful webpages that included anything from lesson plans to parent work in the home setting. Being involved in this Twitter chat was extremely useful and was great to be provided with so many different links and ideas that education professionals encourage others to check out. I found it extremely easy to figure out how to be involved in a Twitter chat and definitely plan to participate and follow more chats in the future. Instead of just Googling a certain topic, these chats give you the opportunity to talk with other professionals and they may have even more useful information for you to use than what you could find in an online search.

This week I added ten new education professionals to my Twitter page. These people are great professionals who provide you with information about anything that you would want to know across all areas of education. The ten people that I started following include:

1) @jamiefath

2) @jenifermarquis

3) @sepatrisk

4) @SLaird

5) @JillBromen

6) @henrythiele

7) @IowaCommNetwork

8) @MissChampion_K

9) @missgraham10

10) @tbbrwn

I found all of these professionals by simply looking at people that other education professionals follow or interact with. They provided great information that I could use to better myself as an educator.

After this week I definitely have a greater respect for Twitter and all that it has to offer any professional or just simply for fun. This is a great tool to find help, have fun, talk with people you otherwise wouldn't be able to, and learn many new things.

You can follow me on Twitter at @kelseywestrum

Happy Tweeting!