Thoughts on Twitter

Okay, I admit, I was skeptical about Twitter at first. My sister had emailed me about it and asked me to sign up. At the time I was a student teacher who had too  much on my plate, and reading about what she had for lunch was certainly not on top of my priority list. Out of sisterly love though, I did create an account and it remained unused for months.

It wasn’t until while reading through RSS feeds I realized that one of my favorite edubloggers, Larry Ferlazzo, had a Twitter account. I followed him and on that fatal day, my non-Twitter life was history.  The explosion of instant educator links and resources was amazing; I felt like a kid  in a candy store, only I was giddy over Web 2.0 tools and educational articles instead of Skybars and Mallo-cups! (And believe me, considering that I’m self-professed chocoholic, that’s big!)

Fast forward to the present: I’ve explored and used Twitter for five months now and I can’t believe how big a change this social networking tool has created in my professional life. I’m a list-type of person, so let me make a list of the many advantages of Twitter for you…

Twitter has allowed me to…

Expand my physical social network of enthusiastic and passionate educators;

Create an emotional support system with said network;

Learn exponentially about current topics and trends in education, teaching methods and tools; and most importantly,

Express myself and find my own voice as a new educator.

Before Twitter, I never even knew about edchats, webinars, or Nings! I’m on #5, by the way… 5 Ning sites, I mean. I feel like a hungry beast, always wanting to learn more. That’s a good feeling– it drives me to push myself so that I can be a better teacher for my students. Hey, and that’s only 5 months into Twitter!