When I got my new position as Teacher on Special Assignment back in May, I figured I needed to learn more about social and professional networks, beyond using Facebook to keep in touch with friends. I joined a number of networks, including Twitter. It took me longer than I thought it would to get the hang of Twitter, but I feel like I'm gradually making better and better use of the system. Some examples:
- What I thought: You can't say anything worthwhile in only 140 characters.
- What I learned: Most professionals are sharing links to articles, not making lengthy arguments.
- What I thought: I have to follow a lot of people in order to read anything.
- What I learned: Hashtags for subjects (#EdTech, #scichat, etc.) allow me to read a discussion whether or not I follow individuals.
- What I thought: I have to read everything in my feed from oldest to newest.
- What I learned: Are you kidding? It can't be done. Pick and choose and don't worry about missing something.
- What I thought: Twitter has a website, so I should use that to read.
- What I learned: There's a separate program called TweetDeck that allows you to have separate columns and makes reading a lot easier.
Internet tools such as Twitter have allowed me to develop a professional learning network in only a few weeks, which has introduced me to a huge number of tools and resources that I can learn from as well as share with my teachers this year. For example, according to nearly everyone on #EdTech this afternoon, Apple is now getting into the LMS game with iTunes U (http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/).
