Twitterchat- have a productive talk with other educators

To be honest, I just registered a twitter account a few days ago. In my opinion, Twitter is only a platform for people posting their thoughts and comments. I have never thought about it can be used as a good form of professional development.

I joined a Twitterchat just now, and received a lot of useful information much more than my expectation. The chat I was in called #edtechchat, and it began at 8:00pm (EST) and has lasted for more than one hour.

In the beginning, I just lurked and observed how the educators discuss in the chat time, and then I started to post my questions, answer to some questions and reply to others’ comments. There are some features of Twitterchat I think which make it become an excellent method of professional development for educators.

First, there are some prompt questions on the right side, and all of these questions are worth thinking and can elicit participants’ discussion. There are six questions in the chat I joined today, for an example, how do you provide students with opportunities to publish or present content customized for specific audiences? All of questions don’t open at same time, instead, they open one after one. People in the discussion will also attach A+ the number of the question (e.g A6) in the beginning of their answers, so don’t worry if you can understand what they are talking about if you come in later.

Another great feature is the board which conclude all of new resources mentioned in the chat. After the discussion, if you want to go back to save some useful websites, just click the links there and you can find juicy resources.

Through the chat, I also found some good educators or resource blogs to follow on Twitter, because they are @ in the comments, so you can go to their home page and follow them if you think they are helpful.

It is amazing that I had such a productive chat with educators who have interests in a same topic. Teachers, schedule a Twitterchat time here! Talk to the teachers from all over the world!