Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock. Learning &
leading with technology, 37(8), 12-17. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading.aspx
McClintock, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter
experience. Learning &leading with
technology, 37(8), 12-17. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading.aspx
In the journal articles, “Join the Flock”, and “Enhance your
Twitter Experience”, Ferguson and McClintock explain what, how, when and why to
use Twitter as an education professional.
Twitter is the best way to help you build a Professional Learning
Network (PLN), which is a community of individuals around the world who are
learning together. With a Twitter
account, you are able to join the collaboration of strangers that are dedicated
to education. Before you know it, you
will have easy access to an abundant and continuous supply of resources and
information. However, there is a time
commitment when it comes to building your PLN.
You must put the time into your Twitter account and research in order to
learn from all the significant people that are apart of it. Once you start “following” certain people
that you take interest in, it will become easier for you to sift through the
information that “Tweeps” (your PLN posse of friends who follow you on multiple
social networks, including Twitter) post on Twitter. Ferguson explains, “the level of
participation is up to you.” You can sit
back and learn from your Tweeps, or you can contribute to the supply of
information for others.
McClintock believes that by being involved on Twitter and
creating your PLN will change the way you see yourself as a teacher and the way
you see and teach your students. Twitter
is more efficient than email. Instead of
forwarding along information you can just tweet about it on your account. To be a strategic tweeter though, you should
follow these percentages: “70% sharing other voices, opinions, and tools; 20%
of tweets should be directly responding, connecting, collaborating, and
cocreating with Twitter colleagues; and 10% is hit-chatting trivial details
about your life as a human being.” So, to join the Tweeple on Twitter, start
slow by getting to know your Tweeps and grow from there…hopefully you don’t hit
any twaffic!
Q1: How will I not get overwhelmed with building my PLN?
There are so many groups and information out there, it would
be easy to get overwhelmed. However,
with the mindset starting out that I should follow only the things I am
interested in should keep me on track to building a great PLN.
Q2: How diverse is Twitter?
Obviously, it is quit diverse because people from all over
the world can join it. However, what generations
of people are using it? What about the
older generation who aren’t familiar with technology. They have useful opinions and different perspectives
to bring to education, however, Twitter probably won’t include these
views. It might be important to be aware
of this.
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