Introduction to Twitter for Professional Development

This week, as I have been exploring Twitter through my online course about using technology in the classroom, I keep hearing about Twitter Chats. We are required to participate in one for our class, but even as I read some articles about how Twitter is useful for professional development the topic came up over and over again.

In Education World's article Using Twitter for Professional Development, they describe Twitter chats as a cheap and easy method of professional development. According to Dr. Peter Dewitt, practicing teachers around the world are the true experts in the education field, as they have continuing firsthand knowledge about what's going on in classrooms from year to year. For this reason, connecting with other teachers seems to be the best method to improve our craft. This is an idea that I have been exploring for awhile now, and according to the article, Twitter Chats are one of the best ways to accomplish this. Apparently groups of teachers live chat by posting questions and responses to one another at a designated time using an specific hashtag.

I'll be honest in admitting that Twitter has never been a site that interested me in the slightest. Despite the fact that links can be added to tweets, making them intellectually worth more than just 140 characters, as the article mentioned, I still find the site to be one of the least visually pleasing of all the social connectivity sites I have explored (other than diigo.) However, I am somewhat intrigued to experience a Twitter Chat and see what all of the fuss is about.