About a year and a half ago, a presenter at a California Teacher's Association conference had almost convinced me that the best free professional development could be found on Twitter dot com. I had tried Twitter, years before. I had really tried to get into it, or even start to understand it. Thirty followers and a couple of years of use and I still felt like I was shouting into a void. If not shouting, then at the very least talking to nobody.
Then, after reluctantly setting up a separate teacher account, I was ready to check out hashtags and discover #edutwitter.
Six months and thirty followers later, I was...lurking? Clicking hashtags and not understanding how chats work? Talking about my class and getting no feedback? Discovering the Swamp of Sadness that is the #homework debate?
With some luck, I found #WeirdEd and all the wonderful people there. I started participating. I started being able to see patterns in what's posted, get overwhelmed, and find a hint of snark. I started accumulating followers....and reading some great content. And I started getting Opinions On Things.
The natural progression here, then, is
1. Join Twitter. Harry Potter and about 28 other people follow you.
2. Post single tweets, lurk in chats. Follow people.
3. Participate in chats. Gain followers, follow more people.
4. Read cool stuff.
5. Oh My Goodness I Have Thoughts On That.
6. Initiate Tweet Storms.
7. Finally find that thing that demands more space than a tweet storm should have.
8. Resist.
9. Give in and start a blog.
So here we are...I don't have a fancy title for this thing yet, just a couple of things I wanted to say. Enjoy!
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