My First #SaskEdChat

WOW. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I absolutely love Twitter. Ever since I decided teaching was the profession for me, I thought about the ways to network with other teachers but never actually went through with it. After using Twitter for about a week now, I can honestly say that I love the environment. Being able to share resources, ideas, or special things with other pre-service or practicing teachers allows for a special connection. I also love to see other people’s ideas shared on Twitter, which has been beneficial. For example, video games are so common in a child’s life, so I feel like incorporating them into the classroom would generate interest. However, I want to incorporate something educational, not just simply Fortnite or some other common video game right now. Then, I came across a classmate’s post on Twitter that shared ways to use games as a learning tool. How cool was this? I have had this question for a long time and through my classmates’ Twitter post, I was able to find an answer to this burning question. I think Twitter is a great tool for educators to use because we can help each other to expand knowledge and answer each other’s questions.

In the classroom, Twitter can also be used. I have seen some posts on Twitter about lesson plans. Therefore, these lesson plans (thanks to Twitter) can be brought into the classroom for all students to use. Now, my plans are to teach young students in the classroom, so using Twitter as a primary classroom tool might not work well, but older grades definitely could. Older grades could use Twitter as a tool in their classroom to share class assignments or simply look at some links/resources that were mentioned in class. Actually, now that it dawns on me, I used Twitter in elementary school for a brief amount of time. I don’t really remember much other than being able to share ideas with classmates and build a safe place in our classroom where everyone felt a sense of belonging. I can’t remember why we stopped using Twitter, but now I think I might need to do some research or ask my parents if they remember why we stopped!

After taking some time to reflect on the SaskEdChat experience, I have a few things that I would like to say. To be completely honest, the experience was quite overwhelming at the start. There was definitely lots of multitasking taking place. In the beginning, we had to do the usual introduction of ourselves. Of course, after I posted my own introduction, I wanted to read others. Now, this was challenging at first when new posts were constantly being made so staying focused on reading one specific post became hard. Then, questions would pop up and I would rush to get my answer in. I tried to answer as quickly as possible so that I had time to read and respond to other answers before the next question was up. Luckily, Tweetdeck saved the day. Without Tweetdeck, I don’t think that I could have properly managed the SaskEdChat. By adding a column for Kelly Christopherson, I was able to keep the questions separate from the response.

The questions were interesting. They challenged me, but in a good way, to critically think about what my response should be. With my luck, my learning from the EFDN 306 class this Spring semester so far assisted in my responses. I think that my favourite part about SaskEdChat was being able to read other responses. Oftentimes after my initial post was made, I would read other responses and it would challenge what I had originally said. This challenge was good. It gave me more ideas on how to approach gender and sexual diversity in the classroom, which is so beneficial as a pre-service teacher who hasn’t had this experience yet. As well, some responses were similar to what I said. This reassured me that my thinking was going in a similar direction, indicating that I was at least somewhat “correct” with my response. This might sound a little like I’m tooting my own horn, but it felt SO good when my phone and Twitter were blowing up with notifications of people liking/replying to my responses. It made me feel like I belonged in the chat. It also reassured my thinking, even more, when someone would reply and agree with what I had said.

Through this chat, I networked with other pre-service and practicing teachers. That is so crazy for me to say because this is a huge step in a desirable direction for me. I loved this networking and gaining knowledge from others who are also passionate about gender and sexual diversity in the school and classroom. I was introduced to more people, which I ended up following on Twitter to keep in touch, and I also gained a wide amount of knowledge. I am so excited for the next SaskEdChat. I’m crossing my fingers that I am able to attend the next one!