Friday, May 17, 2013

Why twitter is a good form of PD

For the last few years, I have heard numerous colleagues mention that twitter is the new PD.  It got me thinking about the reality of this and much fact can be found in the statement.  Twitter is the best form of Professional Development in so many ways.

I have quickly become a twitter-a-holic checking the stream several times a day, finding articles of interest, adding them to pocket or flipboard and referring to them for my blog posts, my staff trainings as well as my personal training.  I have learned so much from the PLN and others who are out there joining in the chats.  The professional development I have gained exceeds what I have paid for.  I attend a lot of conferences and PD.  Our school has a weekly PD where we cover various topics necessary for our classrooms.  While it is a good way to learn from our co-workers, I think learning from others in other places is also a great help. It shows us we are not alone.  I am the only French teacher in my school. Often, I don't have someone with whom I can collaborate and share ideas.  My French PLN is like PD everyday.  I am also the only librarian in my school and while I have a lot of local librarian colleagues, chatting via twitter with others is a great learning experience.  I have met so many wonderful people dealing with similar situations as me.  

Twitter as a PD is a tool everyone in education should try.  I recommended to some of my colleagues to join twitter just to learn from others.  I told them they don't have to tweet, they can just follow. A few have started and have reported back the cool things they are learning.   I have managed to learn about content, commom core, web 2.0 tools, authors, books, library science, my library software, screencasting, flipping a class, just to name a few.  It doesn't take much time.  Just a few minutes a day can provide anyone with a plethora of information that can benefit the educational environment. 

 I LOVE twitter and if we could convince every educator, administrator and school board member to take a peek, I think our educational world would be a very different place.

1 comment:

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