This week I participated in a live educational chat on twitter to expand my PLN. In case you didn't read my previous blog posts, a PLN is a Professional Learning Network many educators have one. For more details you are more then welcome to look back at my past posts. The educational chat I participated in is not the only one there is many out there and I definitely recommend checking some out. Previous to this week I never had participated in one of these chats and wasn’t sure what to expect. I can happily say however that I enjoyed my experience and would participate again. I enjoyed reading many of the replies to questions asked within the hour to see views of different people mainly in the education field. . I participated in a chat that had the hashtag ”#iaedchat” and was hosted by Andrea Townsley. It took place on Sunday December 2nd at 8pm. From what I could find this chat occurs weekley at the same time and has been going on since 2013. Back in 2013 it was started by administrators from across the state of Iowa and now has multiple moderators.
This week the chat had 6 main questions asked which various educators responded to. The main topic was of course education and what is going on in schools. Here are just a few of the questions asked should schools block certain websites from school devices? Should the traditional school calendar be replaced or modified? Should the pledge of allegiance be recited daily in schools? Along with all these questions anyone participating also had a bit of time to ask any questions they personally wanted feedback on. I didn’t ask any of my own questions as I had none at the time but enjoyed reading other peoples questions and the responses some of them received.
I participated in this chat in multiple ways, I read what many people had to say about the different questions asked and I made some tweets using the hashtag. I began by introducing myself, then posted my opinion on the blocking of many websites in school and I replied to a comment someone made about cursive writing. After the hour passed and all questions had been asked I made a tweet thanking everyone that participated including the host for participating and allowing me to too.I told them I really enjoyed reading what they all had to say and look forward to possibly participating again in a different weeks discussion.
Yes at first I didn’t know what to expect going into this chat and wasn’t all that excited but I’m very happy I participated. Entering in I wasn’t that surprised about anything other then how quickly the discussion occurred. I had to refresh my page so many times to see new tweets entering the thread every minute. Keeping up with all the responses was definitely a challenge at first I thought but then I just tried to focus on the questions and responses that interested me. Specifically I was interested in what people had to say about cursive being taught and if school should be all year or stay the same as it currently is. To effectively participate I used the resource of being able to have two tabs open on my computer one for my main twitter home page and one for the hashtags thread. This made it easy to make tweets myself and reply to others with the hashtag. Looking back at the hour I unfortunately didn’t come across any resources that people posted links to and I wish I would have so that I could possibly have found and possibly used in my future.
In conclusion, I enjoyed my experience and would like to participate in a Twitter chat again in the future. By doing so I will gain more knowledge about the field I am going into in my future and I expand my PLN. These both will occur more and more through multiple chats and other resources on the internet. They can only help me learn and become a better future educator. If you would like to see the tweet thread that this educational chat occured you can view it here if you have a twitter account. Below is some screenshots of my posts in the thread.
No comments:
Post a Comment