When I was an English teacher, I used to snub Twitter as a completely informal, dumbed-down platform that restricted any potentially valuable communication down into 140 characters. Then I got my own account – @BuffEnglish – and decided to see what all the tweeting was about. What Twitter offered to me was immensely different from what I expected.
I joined Twitter to find a new way to connect with my students. Since “all the kids were using it,” I thought that if I set up a professional account then I could just use it to share additional information via this medium with them. However, I realized that there’s a lot more than just teens on this platform. Within a few days I was following Mark Cuban, the Pope, Margaret Atwood, a variety of top-tier news sources, and lots and lots of other teachers. I was shocked at how many people were using Twitter, and how easily it broke down barriers and made so many people so accessible.
The more I delved into the Twitter community, the more I realized that this forum opened up opportunities for communication that I never thought possible. Not only was I receiving information directly from individuals I never thought I’d hear from, but I also could send messages of my own to them. Within days I was tweeting author Salmon Rushdie and artist Ai Weiwei. I could reach out, share, learn, post, connect…I was rollin’ with the big dogs.
I felt cool, like I was with in the crowd. Connected. But even tweeting John Green to tell him I loved The Fault in Our Stars wasn’t the highlight of the experience. Instead, two surprising and completely unexpected aspects of Twitter have really served to open up my world: the hashtag and Twitter chat.
My Two Treasure Chests
Starting with Twitter felt like discovering a treasure I didn’t know was out there. And thanks to the hashtag and chat formats, it was easy to rake in the most valuable education content out there.
The hashtag looks like this: #. It’s a pound sign, or a number symbol. But when you put it in front of a word (like #money) then your entire tweet becomes part of a community of other #money tweets. You can even make multiple-word hashtags (#IfIWereAnAnimalIdBe). Anything can be a hashtag. When I found certain hashtags – like #edchat, #21stedchat, and #engchat – I was able to learn what lots of other educators were doing out there and share my own voice in the process.
It was thanks to hashtags that I was able to find so many other brilliant educators. Other teachers, administrators, technology coordinators, and advisors were daily posting their thoughts, photos, and – my favorite – links to education articles. And without doing much work I immediately found access to tons of worthwhile insights that made me a better teacher. When I joined Twitter I never expected to find a vibrant community of others. I just expected to find nonsense. Sure, there’s plenty of nonsense out there too, but the customizable and curated list of people I follow and interact with ensures that I get the experience I want. I didn’t really this was possible!
Twitter chats sounded strange to me at first: the rapid flinging of 140-character messages across the twitter-sphere didn’t seem like a constructive medium of communication. But with every education chat I joined I could openly ask questions, gain specific knowledge, and even lend my own two cents to the discussion.
Forging Connections
At first I didn’t know who to follow, or even how to find them if I knew who they were. Fortunately, after a few searches for things like “English teacher” or “education professional,” a few names popped up that interested me. After following them, I could also see who these folks were tweeting with or who they followed. I simply added those people to my list and paid attention to what they had to say.
With relatively little work, I was already following over 100+ people. There was some trial and error, and I “unfollowed” people who I didn’t feel I wanted to keep in my feed. I engaged in conversations and broke some etiquette rules along the way. But it wasn’t complicated, and once my appetite was whet and my toes were dappled in the pool, I was hooked.
From there on out, it was just a matter of following who I wanted, connecting with who I wanted, chatting with who I wanted, and engaging with or ignoring everything when I wanted.
Sure, Twitter does for spelling and grammar what the chainsaw did for trees, but I have learned there is a huge advantage to being a “connected” educator. The knowledge and resources I gained from my first few months on Twitter are truly invaluable. So look for @BuffEnglish on Twitter – I’ll see you there!
Are you on Twitter? If so, I’d love to connect! What were your first impressions when you joined?