Friday, August 21, 2009

Twitter #edchat

Edchat has become an exciting collaborative conversation forum for educators via Twitter. Edchat discussions happen Tuesday’s on Twitter in two different time zones – 12pm and 7pm (ET).
• Follow the hashtag #edchat
• Each week hosts a new educational topic

There are great bloggers who have explained, in detail, Twitter and edchats. Here are just a few samples:
Teacher Reboot Camp
The Cool Cat Teacher
Blogging About the Web 2.0 Connected Classroom

I participated in my first edchat discussion on August 18th and was pleasantly surprised at the thought-provoking discussions with last Tuesday’s topic “What Objectives are Necessary for Effective Tech Integration?”
• Technology should become increasingly transparent
• Innovative educators needed
• Do innovative educators always equal good educators?
• Encourage and engage colleagues
• Teachers engaged in teaching; students engaged in learning
• Explore new resources and tools
• Focus on content, not the technology
• Tell admin, show admin, involve admin
• Tech needs to be adopted, not adapted!

I found myself continually refreshing my Twitter page as the conversations were lively and constantly evolving from people joining in throughout the evening. Is this kind of conversation worthwhile? Absolutely! I have added a number of new technology experts to my professional learning network (PLN), and have gained new followers who share in my educational interest in technology.

Dare to Tweet in #edchat…it will do your PLN good!

4 comments:

mshertz said...

Carol,

I'm so glad you discovered #edchat! It is a lot of fun and a very enlightening experience. Your comment about refreshing your Twitter page makes me think you're nit getting the most out of the conversation! See my post on how to best follow it & archive the conversation: http://philly-teacher.blogspot.com. Thanks for letting people know about this Twitter phenomenon!

Carol said...

Thanks for the comment. I will check out your Twitter tips!

Carol

Shelly Terrell said...

Carol,
Thank you for introducing your viewers to edchat! I really believe teachers learn a lot when they participate in a wider discussion. Did you see the Tweet from our archiver, Jerry Swiatek, who said there were 900 comments in the evening edchat alone? I think when teachers who do not use Twitter see this type of activity on Twitter they will see the true power of Twitter as a professional development tool! I am going to do an update to the original post with the new blogs of edchat and will add yours to the list!

Carol said...

Thank you to all to have left comments! I appreciate feedback on this blog.

Carol