I have been a Twitter 'Twit', as my Principal calls it, for a little over 2 years. I started off knowing very little about what it was and who would possible want to use it. I explored a little and mostly perused tweets by searching for particular current events. Being a die-hard Ex-Pat Kiwi, my first tweet was about the Christchurch Earthquake that happened in New Zealand in February of 2011.
Tonight I was trying to find something I was sure I tweeted sometime in the past year. I downloaded my Twitter archive and I found a visual representation of my tweets over the last 2 years. I posted my exciting analysis of it in a screen recording below.
Last year I found a blogpost by Daniel Edwards (@Syded06) posted that described the 10 stages of Twitter for Teachers - It can be found here - http://dedwards.me/2012/06/13/teachers-the-10-stages-of-twitter/. I resonated with this post so much. It matched my learning curve with Twitter to a tee! I wonder how many others have had a similar experience?
I cannot even begin to explain how much I have grown as a teacher since being connected with twitter. In a year of being an active user, I have experienced ALL of the following, I have:
Suburb carnage http://bit.ly/dHcgDv #eqnzThe first thing I really learned about twitter was how incredibly fast news is broadcasted through this medium. I think I even found out about the earthquake before my parents did (who live in NZ). I remember thinking how powerful this tool could be for communicating with others. At that point, I didn't even think I would ever use Twitter as a PD tool.
— Steve Clark ADE (@stevewclark) February 24, 2011
Tonight I was trying to find something I was sure I tweeted sometime in the past year. I downloaded my Twitter archive and I found a visual representation of my tweets over the last 2 years. I posted my exciting analysis of it in a screen recording below.
Last year I found a blogpost by Daniel Edwards (@Syded06) posted that described the 10 stages of Twitter for Teachers - It can be found here - http://dedwards.me/2012/06/13/teachers-the-10-stages-of-twitter/. I resonated with this post so much. It matched my learning curve with Twitter to a tee! I wonder how many others have had a similar experience?
I cannot even begin to explain how much I have grown as a teacher since being connected with twitter. In a year of being an active user, I have experienced ALL of the following, I have:
- Connected and networked with thousands of passionate teachers worldwide
- Developed a PLN (Personal Learning Network) of 700 hundred strong
- Become an ADE Class of 2013 (Apple Distinguished Educator) - I didn't ecen know what an ADE was until I followed a colleague Duncan White (@duncwhite) and saw the apple symbol in his profile
- Shared 100's of things I've been a part of in my school and district
- Taken and used great ideas from teachers around the globe
- Promoted PD events within our system
- Connected with teachers in our system to discuss the learning commons concept
- Found an abundance of technology based resources from other people sharing
- Discussed issues and events with teachers, globally
- and maybe the biggest thing for me, Made my learning VISIBLE!
To any other teachers out there who happen to be reading this. I challenge you to begin the journey. Open the door of your classroom and let the world take a peek in. We all have something to share that others would find value.
Tonight I found this challenge from fellow Tweep and ADE Carl Hooker (@mrhooker). http://hookedoninnovation.com/2013/03/20/the-21-day-twitterguide4beginners-challenge/
Keen to try it?
