Week 11: #INeLearn Twitter Chat
Last month, I, along with other preservice teachers at Indiana University, had the privilege of hosting the weekly #INeLearn twitter chat and the opportunity to ask practicing and veteran teachers important questions about implementing technology in the classroom. Read on for our expert teacher wisdom and advice about using #EdTech!
#INeLearn TWITTER CHAT QUESTIONS, CREATED BY PRESERVICE TEACHERS:
What are twitter chats?
By far my favorite Personal Learning Network (PLN) tool, twitter chats (and twitter in general) provide teachers with an easy and efficient means to collaborate, exchange ideas, and discuss topics related to education. "Twitter chats" create a public back channel that can be accessed through the designated hashtag for the chat--in our case, #INeLearn--where teachers can "meet" at a certain day and time to collectively discuss a particular educational issue or prompt. Tweets including this hashtag can be accessed at any time through twitter's hashtag database which provides educators with a simple way to find responses to questions posed by the chat moderator and add their own input. The theme for our chat was "Preservice Teacher Takeover," so preservice teachers from Indiana University crafted each of the chat questions for the week and moderated the chat. The chats typically last an hour but are fairly fast-paced; each question is allotted only 6-7 minutes, and then the moderator moves on to the next. Despite their brevity, twitter chats provide teachers with a unique and invaluable opportunity to connect with fellow educators from around the world to develop new skills, ask for advice, brainstorm new teaching approaches, and collaboratively problem-solve relevant issues in both specific content areas and education as a whole.
# INeLearn: "Preservice Teacher Takeover"
By hosting the #INeLearn twitter chat, we were able to ask practicing and veteran teachers our most pressing questions about #EdTech and voice our concerns about integrating technology into our future classrooms. The teachers graciously welcomed us and responded to our questions with sincerity, kindness, and the best advice they could offer based on their personal experiences with educational technology. I really enjoyed being able to communicate and make connections with other practicing teachers and read their responses to real concerns we have as students who are quickly approaching the time when we will have classrooms and students of our own. However, twitter chats move very quickly, which means that it is easy to get lost in a long feed of responses, particularly if you take the time to carefully and critically craft your own answers to the questions. This made it difficult for me to have side conversations with individual teachers while also staying on top of the progression of questions. If I were to participate again as a moderator, I would prefer to simply respond to the practicing teachers' comments without the additional responsibility of responding to the questions myself. (Or I would simply write my responses beforehand!) For me it proved to be too difficult to do both at the same time because of the fast pace.
Overall, I really enjoyed moderating and participating in this twitter chat. I would love to get involved with this one (and others!) again sometime soon!
Here's a quick recap of the #INeLearn chat with some of the most noteworthy responses:
https://twitter.com/CaseysClassroom/timelines/1066478413169549313
--Miss Hennings
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