MY JOURNEY WITH TWITTER

My Journey with Twitter

Tech and Ed 

Bailey Sheridan 3/1/2021

 New Beginnings

I first got Twitter on January 18th to prepare for school to start. Having a Twitter account was a requirement for my Tech and Ed course (Edu209) at Trinity. I wasn’t honestly not excited about getting a Twitter, I had my skeptical views. Before actually getting Twitter and Learning how amazing PLN is. I thought it was just politics and memes and a waste of time. I was VERY wrong. 


Currently I am following 317 people and organizations about tech in education or educators (current and future)  in general offering advice. And I have a Whooping 90 followers which I still can’t believe. So far I have learned so much from having twitter, about education, teachers, resources, the world and myself. 

Community


A big take away from twitter so far has been about community. I was really nervous to start using it and had no Idea what I would actually say on there. However My wonderful classmates helped me out. First Donny gave me a question to answer to get the ball rolling. Then Jeffrey and Sarah and I would ask each other “what do you think” of this question. Soon the whole class was talking to each other respectfully about education issues and solutions. From snow days to Happy Fridays, we support and talk about education. This has been a really nice part of it, because we only talk here, because we are all online. 


Community isn’t just local on Twitter

 On twitter being part of a community isn’t just a local thing, but being part of a group. My group of course is my fellow Educators. I have had the privilege to talk to educators K-12 and students studying to be teachers, from all over the world. I have found a lot of great teachers, podcast hosts, chat hosts, parents, and educational sites to follow. The sites I think are my favorite thing to search and find, because they are perfect to use in my future class or to help me learn now. 


My favorite for future use so far are:

 My Favorite sites  currently use for school/lesson are:

Chatting with the Ed  community

Twitter chats were something else I was worried about for this assignment. Talking to randoms online seemed hard and awkward. Again I was wrong. I participated in my first twitter chat #t2tChat or @Teacher2Teacher in late January, it went really well and I enjoy it. The people were nice, but the chat was kind of slow and the topics were for real teachers, not students like me.I still would recommend it for people who are into that. 

So the following week I went to a new chat called #WhatisSchool with Mark E. Weston Ph.D. @ShiftParadigm and Ellen Deem @deem_ellen. #WhatisSchool had a 3-part chat about Hope, which was much needed especially with the pandemic. Lately I have been doubting myself becoming a teacher, with the pandemic, my degree, and self abilities. Ellen and Mark and all the fabulous people who came to the chat, gave me kind words and confidence I don’t know I needed more of about it all. I am so grateful I “met” them because they both shared inspiring words and fun tidbits about education and being a teacher. From funny moments, to hopeful words, and of course lesson ideas to inspire students. Like I said many times I wish to be “a light in the darkness” for my students and give them hope and encouragement. This chat was perfect for giving me good advice. I will definitely check more like them out soon. 


Teachers help Teachers

In addition to these chats I have been going to. I have been commenting on posts, my classmates and others. Giving my options on issues like all school testing and snow days, or help. This part of twitter is really nice, because teachers will help each other. They want others advice and counsel, to plan and relate to each other. I can post a question about 1st grade literature and within minutes if I hashtag accordingly I will get a response. Also teachers just enjoy talking to each other. It's beautiful.  

Overall Twitter has been a great experience and not at all what I thought it would have been. It is way more positive and helpful to build PLN and find teachers to talk and review things with. I can’t wait to learn more on it. 

Thanks,

Bailey Sheridan 


 

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