Throughout high school, twitter was the one social media platform I never really got into. Everyone I knew my age that used twitter was on it for the memes because apparently memes got popular on twitter and then after they were dying out on twitter they would become popular on Instagram, which is generally where I would see them. So, I would also get mad fun of for being “late to the game” on the meme trends. But from what people talked about around twitter it seemed like there was no community guidelines at all and people really just posted whatever they pleased which steered me away from getting twitter. So, I was very shocked in my first year education classes when they suggested everyone make a teacher twitter account. I thought to myself “really?!? Twitter?!” but now here I am learning about all the beneficial uses for teachers to be on twitter – who would have thought.
The twitter I am currently using I did actually get in my senior year of high school specifically for when my school hosted the region 10 drama festival. At previous festivals, they had started a hashtag for everyone to post on throughout the festival and I wanted to incorporate that aspect into our festival. Of course, our festival was vine and meme themed so the whole hashtag is just drama memes we made. Then the hashtag didn’t even catch on with the other schools at the festival. However, if you scroll far enough back you’ll see some random posts about that!
Then, once I started university, I started to morph my account into a teacher account and I pretty much just used it to post about different university events that I attended, mostly professional development events and then a little bit about my ECS 100 field placement.
Although I have had my twitter for a couple years, I am really just starting to figure out how to actually work it and use it consistently. I am also really starting to understand why it is so beneficial for teacher, there is literally a whole community of teachers on twitter supporting one another and sharing their ideas – which is honestly so cool. I am actually shocked that I have never heard of the #saskedchat before! You think that in my first year when they were mentioning that we should all have twitters that they would explain why we should, which could maybe include talking about the #saskedchat. I think the ability to have an online support system has really increased in importance over the past year, so I can see my use of twitter growing for this reason.
I really enjoyed the #saskedchat week! I was excited, overwhelmed, in awe, and stressed all at the same time! I made a TikTok that describes how I felt during the chat to a T (also yes I realize that I made a TikTok and then upload it to YouTube to embed onto my blog, I forgot that you could just embed TikToks). I feel like some of my classmates may relate as well!
It probably just felt like this because it was my first ever chat and first time using Tweetdeck so there was a lot going on! I think it was helpful that we did the #saskedchat as a class because a lot of us were in the same boat when it came to being newbies and also with some of our answers to the prompts. So, it didn’t feel like I was the odd one out in a chat filled with very experienced teachers that had such good answers to every single question.
I’m in the same boat with Twitter. I can’t seem to get super invested in it and find it hard to keep up with the class tasks because of it. What are your thoughts about implementing Twitter usage in the classroom?
Hello Allysia!
I am not really sure how I feel about implementing twitter usage in the classroom to be honest. I like the idea of using it to like share what you are doing in the classroom to help with you personal learning network. However, I am not exactly sure how you might use it in collaboration with students? What are your thoughts about it?
Wow! That is so true! I love your TikTok! That is exactly how I felt in the saskedchat! I seriously missed so many questions. I also have not spent alot of time using Twitter do you have any tips?
Hi Cyandra!
Sorry, I guess I forgot to respond to these comments! My one tip would just be trying to move past what I would call almost a “social media mental block.” Because most forms of social media, like instagram, it’s almost intimidating to post and it seems like there is a bunch of unwritten rules about how often you should post and what you should post. So, I think when you are using twitter just try and remember that twitter doesn’t have to be like that! The whole point is to document you learning and to connect with other educators.
Haha, your TikTok was hilarious! That is exactly how I felt when I was in the #Saskedchat too. It goes by so fast! There were some questions that I wouldn’t even answer. I would just have time to read other people’s responses. Another thing that I liked doing was finding other people to follow. Trying to answer all of the questions was definitely too much for me!
Hey Trista!
I skipped a couple questions as well and I felt bad about it until Katia said that the point of the chat is to connect with other educations are grow your personal learning network! So, turns out we were actually doing the right thing prioritizing the interactions over answering the questions.
Oh my goodness I just realized that the reason I felt bad for not answering all the questions is probably because the education system engraved standardized tests and “never leaving a question blank” into my brain. Now I have to adjust to learning being about the process (the interactions with other educators) and not just the product (answering the prompts).