I’ve completed my first elective for the CUE IEC program- Twitter for Educators. I signed up for the class with some goals in mind: try out TweetDeck, check out some ed chats, and perhaps come away with either some lesson ideas for my class or PD for my fellow teachers at my school site. Mission accomplished to all the above.

My favorite, and most exciting, take-away was unlocking the mystery of TweetDeck. I had tried it a couple of times in my approximately eight months of “heavy” Twitter use and gave-up after a few minutes. The interface appeared overwhelming and cluttered, it took the clean look of the basic Twitter.com site and barfed up a bunch of columns. Noooo thank you. When I learned how to set up TweetDeck specifically for an ed chat, game over on my reluctance. I was sold.

 

We were asked to participate in at least one ed chat for the course and write a reflection. In the one month I was a part of the course, I participated in five. Here are the ones that interested me:

Twitter ed chats are a perfect place to build your PLN (professional learning network), ask questions, and help others. There are so many different ed chats to choose from. Here is a directory of Twitter chats you can use to find your perfect match.

Twitter has already affected my teaching is such a short amount of time. I already believe that I have grown more in the past six months of Twitter use than I have in my entire first five years combined. Some examples include BreakOut EDU, Mystery Skype, and learning about CUE (IEC Program and Rock Star Camps)- massive growth and trying out different things in half a school year. My students absolutely loved both BreakOut EDU and Mystery Skypes–these will be coming back into my school rotation next school year.

I don’t want to horde this fountain of knowledge for myself. Another assignment asked us to either develop a few classroom lessons using Twitter or develop some PD for your school district. I immediately chose PD to share my enthusiasm for Twitter. I plan on starting the PD when we arrive back in August.

Here are the plans for my Twitter professional development: outline, three google slide presentations, and the reasoning. Feel free to make a copy and use in your own district.

I enjoyed the course– well worth my time.