Introduction to Twitter

Maybe I'm a little bit late to this trend, but I feel that social media is not really my forte. Until now, the only real social media I ever had was Facebook, and in the past 4 years, the only thing I've done is update my profile picture a few times. For me, I feel that social media is nothing but a time-wasting activity. I don't need to compare my life to my "friends" and I certainly don't need to see pictures of your vacation/dinner/daily activities to feel like I know them any better. The main reason that I haven't deleted my facebook is because my dad lives overseas and facebook messenger is primarily how we keep in touch.

Honestly, though, I feel that the real reason I don't like social media is because of the fact that it is not an accurate representation of real life. Much like a Yelp score, the only times people comment are when they are overly emotional, be it happy, sad, mad, etc. The entire notion of social media to me is one big "look at me!" in my opinion. That being said, this course on technology in education has taught be that there is another side to social media.

Twitter has found a way to connect professionals and create a dialogue around professional growth that is not limited by one's own location. By searching and filtering certain hashtags, teachers can connect with one another like never before. We no longer have to rely on our own colleagues within our school district for new ideas and helpful feedback. Just a quick search for #TeacherMyth has yielded several results for teachers who are curating a community to debunk teacher myths and provide helpful tips to other teachers:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TeacherMyth&src=tyah

Having created my own Twitter, at first I chose to look for some of my favorite artists and celebrities that always seem to be relevant to my interests, mostly musicians and athletes. Upon thinking more about how Twitter can better further my education, I then began to search for helpful organizations and people in the education business. After a short time, I had found quite a few people and organizations to follow. 

While I don't feel that I will use Twitter to send too many tweets (as evidenced by the below picture), I do feel that I will check it periodically to keep up on current educational trends. 

Overall, I am still hesitant to have too much of a digital footprint, but I am definitely intrigued by the possibility of finding new ideas to help me teach certain content standards and create innovative classroom activities.