I will start by saying I was not a believer at the beginning of this class that Twitter would a worthwhile educational tool. I can now say that I have completely changed sides. As the deadline has approached I started watching others in this class complete this assignment (which looked a lot easier to do than I had thought at first) and was impressed by the conversations they had. The more research I put into this the more I kept getting excited about the amount of interaction I would have with specialists and experts in education. Last night I finally got the opportunity that I was looking for. Let me first say I am glad I have been working on my speed reading because the more people in a twitter chat (maybe 20 or so in #atplc) the more tweets there are. I'm not sure where I stand on the clarity of interaction, but here are a few things I took away:
- I feel sorry for the person hosting! People naturally want to talk about a subject someone else brought up or stay on the first topic you introduced all the way until you end the chat.
- This means that people are engaged and have something important to say however, these professionals were there to discuss things relevant to their schools and professions, nobody was there to talk about anything outside of education (though everyone was very friendly and helpful)
- I have enough info to sift through YEARS of ideas for how to assess, view data, interact with students, parents, and administration.
- ....I didn't think it would be so nerve-wrecking at first to interact with high-level administrators in an online setting since this wasn't a face to face interaction (literally nobody there was a classroom teacher, there were specialists, and most were principals or superintendents). I moved past it when I finally realized these people were not here to criticize input; it was the exact opposite: they wanted unfiltered input on the topic
- In a school or district meeting you have a lot of noise (side conversations), and you have the same in a twitter chat too, but EVERYONE sees everybody's conversation so although it made it pretty hectic, the side conversations were very interesting and insightful.
Sounds like you had a great experience! It was a little intimidating at first because I felt like everyone else involved knew what was going on but me. I agree that with more experience it will get easier.
ReplyDeleteI am so grateful for the people who archive these chats, so you can go back over them at a reasonable pace.
ReplyDeleteInitially, I felt the same way about Twitter. I did not want to do and couldn't understand how it was going to help me. I thought, "I'll do it because it's my assignment, but when it's over I will not use it anymore." However, I do have to say that I have come away with so much valuable information that I can't see not using it now. I like how you broke down what you learned from the chat. It was overwhelming for me at first but I got through it and enjoyed it.
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