A few days ago I joined
Twitter. After joining, I tried a Twitterchat for the first time ever. I chose to attend the Educational Technology Chat, #edtechchat, from 7-8pm EST on Mondays. I arrived on the chat page a few minutes early to prepare myself. I was not sure at all what was going to happen. At 7 the chat began and I started to realize why Twitterchats are such useful resources for professional development. The moderator began the chat by signaling a question with the symbol Q1. This helped me to establish what the conversation was going to be about and allowed me to think of something to say. I did not know a lot about the subject which was STEM schools and students. After watching the chat for a little while I finally figured more out about the subject and asked a few questions that pertained to ESL. It was a great experience to learn more about a subject that I did not know well. This is just one great way that Twitterchats provide professional development. I found it very challenging to keep up with the chat while also trying to write my own posts or respond to others posts. I hesitated to send my first Tweet but it was really exhilarating when someone responded to it. I felt like my voice was heard and that I was an important part of the chat because people cared about my contribution. Part way through I was given the chance to identify myself as a first time user of Twitterchat. At this point a lot of the users made Tweets welcoming me to the chat. The moderator himself even wrote a Tweet that welcomed me and encouraged others to follow me. I gained about 14 followers from the chat and felt appreciated. It was a really inspiring and interesting experience. Feeling so welcome definitely made a difference. It allowed me to open up, be comfortable, and enjoy an experience that I was hesitant about at first. The fact that I felt very comfortable sharing my thoughts and asking questions is another reason why I would definitely use this as a source of professional development. Overall, I would definitely use Twitterchat again for professional development because it was a really fun experience and I did learn a lot about a topic of which I knew very little.
