Okay, I admit that I rebelled against joining Twitter for the longest time. I had friends and family members urging me to join. I often said, “Why should I join another social networking site? I have not used MySpace for a while and am quite happy with Facebook.” Those who were part of the Twitter community kept insisting that I join because in their words it was better than Facebook. I had no idea what I was missing on Twitter. Months would pass and I was quite determined that I did not need Twitter. I was fine without it. I kept social networking for my personal life. I did not see why I needed it otherwise.
Several months ago I finally decided to give Twitter a try. Well, I signed up for Twitter and that was the most of me using it for several months. I decided to actually give it a try almost two weeks ago for professional purposes. (Update: Since this post was originally drafted, I have now actively been using Twitter for almost 2 months.) Boy, was I wrong about not needing it! There is a community of networking and collaboration among educators from the U.S. and all over the world that I have missed out on. I jumped right into developing my PLN (Personal Learning Network). If you have been on Twitter for a while and/or have been part of a PLN then this all may sound silly to you. I know many teachers who do not know about the great benefits to using Twitter for professional purposes. I am particularly writing this post for all of my teacher friends and other teachers out there who don’t know what they are missing out on, like I had been. Educators normally have a negative opinion about social networking due to privacy concerns. I am not advocating using social networking or Twitter for personal and non-professional contact with students. I believe that there needs to be a professional line between student and teacher. Some would argue to disagree with me, but that is not the intent of this post. I do believe that educators should use Twitter for professional purposes with other educators. I am writing this blog post as a newbie to Twitter. I am writing from the observation and opinion of what I have learned in a short period. My goal is to educate those who rebelled against Twitter or were clueless about its professional power, and networking. So if you are not a part of Twitter and are rolling your eyes to what I am saying now, I urge you to read through the rest of this post on what I have learned and how you too can benefit from it. If you don’t belong to Twitter, I urge you to open an account and try it for a week or two. Use some of the things I have learned here in getting you started. I have read articles & blogs, watched videos, read presentations, taken educational surveys, listened to podcasts, chatted with other educators, etc. The list goes on and on of the type of educational-related items I have delved in within the past two weeks of Twitter. I have learned so much in a short time frame.