Learning & Leading Through Technology

Did you know that you can access more than 150 free online professional development workshops each week—and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your home or school to attend them? Learn how to find, participate in, and start your own Twitter chats with this easy-to-follow FAQ.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, you have undoubtedly heard of Twitter. Beyond its entertainment uses, the free service has been a major boon to educators, who use it to connect with colleagues, share resources, communicate with experts, and personalize their professional learning.

In fact, we authors met because
we were both using Twitter with our
teacher candidates. Even though we
live 1,000 miles apart, we have
collaborated on several
projects while continu-
ing to learn from each
other via tweets.
Using a service that limits
communication to 140 characters
may seem like a strange way to get
professional development (PD), but
educators have found it to be a power-
ful digital learning space where they
can connect around shared interests.
Scheduled Twitter chats, in particular,
have become a popular professional
activity for many tweeting educators.

Why, you ask? And how? Read on to find the answers to your questions about Twitter chats.

Why Twitter?

First of all, Twitter is not just limited to 140 characters. In addition to text, tweets can include images, short videos, and hyperlinks. Educators can also tweet links to recommended articles, blogs, websites, and other teaching resources. And Twitter’s 24/7/365 accessibility from multiple platforms, such as Twitter.com, HootSuite, Tweet-Deck, and several mobile apps, makes it easy to use anytime, anywhere.

Twitter is also an open social network. While Facebook friend requests from strangers cause suspicion, on Twitter it’s normal to follow and be followed by people you don’t know. That means that far-flung educators who might otherwise never meet, but have some common interests, can still easily

Hash It Out

Hashtags don’t have to be associated
with live chats. Educators can keep the
conversation going about their favorite
topics asynchonously over Twitter by
starting their own hashtags or by using
an established one. English-as-a-foreign-
language teacher and blogger Chiew
Pang (@aClil ToClimb) maintains a public
Google Doc at goo.gl/4CVDW that tracks
connect through the medium. It is not
uncommon for educators using Twitter
to interact virtually for some time and
then eventually meet face to face at edu-
cational conferences or teacher-driven
unconferences or edcamps.

What Is a Hashtag?

Hashtags help connect educators with similar interests. A hashtag is a keyword or phrase preceded by the # symbol, which indicates that a tweet includes content on a particular topic. For example, users sending tweets related to the flipped classroom model might add the #flipclass hashtag.

This mechanism allows educators to join ongoing discussions with others tweeting on similar topics and direct their messages and resources to those who have a shared interest. Hashtags are usually determined organically by users, and educators on Twitter have established and make frequent use of a wide variety of education-related ones (see “Hash It Out” below).