Sunday, August 16, 2015

My Twitter Ego....

Friday was my first day back to school.  Needless to say, the Twitterverse is all a buzz with back to school stuff.  Some of it for the classroom.  Some of it teachers lamenting the end of summer. Some of it anxiety about the return to school.  A buzz I tell ya...A buzz!  (sounds like my husband speaking)

People talk about Twitter being a good professional development (PD) tool.  So here is what Twitter has given me:

  • I follow a number of  educators on Twitter; people from all levels of education and administration.  I love to see a superintendent crazy about his/her schools and students or a principal or coach celebrating academic and  athletic victories
  • Over the summer I have read tons of blogs and articles that I have gotten through my  Twitter feeds. 
  • I like to listen to podcasts so I have picked up a few more educational podcasts to listen to on my drive home from work.  
  • I have learned a lot through Twitter about Google Classroom (I am signed up to participate in a PD session in our district on Monday) and bought a book called "50 Things You can do with Google Classroom" (by @alicekeeler and @MillerLibbi)
  • I am learning to "Teach Like a Pirate" - another book I bought by @burgessdave.  I am just a few chapters in....I like it....
  • I have gotten the late breaking news on education and the world in general.
  • It seems that there is not a lot of love for homework at the elementary levels.
  • The marching band and football team at the high school where I teach are geared up for the new school year.
  • The superintendent of the school district I graduated from writes a blog.  
  • Some guy in Kentucky has given me advice about  what to do with my peppers from the garden.
I am sure there is more but this is just what comes to mind as I write this,  besides the every-man stuff like baseball scores, weather updates, pictures of food, silly animals and people, etc.  I know I have posted my fair share of  silly animals (the cat and bird  we live with) and the flowers, vegetables, and interesting visitors to my yard.  If I find something that I think might be valuable in the classroom, I email it to myself and sometimes forward it on to other educators in my district.

One thing that I have  learned about myself is that I have a Twitter Ego.  I confessed in this blog post Houston We have a Problem that I am addicted to Twitter but it has gotten worse.  I replied to a Tweet earlier this week and I have been watching the  "favorited" and "retweeted" counts go up.  It makes me feel empowered to do something to change the issue that 28 people have favorited and 8 people have retweeted.

It all started on 8/12 @ 6:21 pm with someone tweeting out that they wished teachers had recess.  My reply @ 6:40 pm was that I wished high school students had recess to help with their focus in the afternoon.  I got a reply from someone wishing their kids had just 20 more minutes of lunch. it is now 5:12 pm on   8/16 and the most recent "action" on this Tweet  happened this afternoon.

Now I have said it...the bigger question is: What can I do about it?

That is the thing I find kind of interesting about this "social media" stuff.  Lots of words....what about the actions?  I know I and at least 28 other people believe it but what can we do about it?

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