Twitter Ed Chat

 Twitter Ed Chat #DENchat

What is a Twitter Chat?

Image source: socialflyny.com

I was actually extremely confused with how I was supposed to participate with Professional Learning Network through twitter after just reading the assignments description. Never being a twitter user, and overall not being very big on participating in online conversations,  this was making me extremely uncomfortable. After making my twitter, I observed A LOT, then re-posted a bit, and started searching for a chat and how to participate. Finally with the help of tweet deck, the prezi from my professor, and some of my friends who say they live tweet the bachelor, I got the idea behind it. 

It is a online conversation, with people of the same interests, collaborating and exchanging information. Once I understood this and understood how to participate in a twitter chat it was exciting. I still was not excited to comment and participate, but to absorb what other people were sharing and saying.

Ed Chat I Participated in: Hispanic Heritage Month

Image source: twitter.com/BSGSCSFoster

I work in the most diverse school in the city of Chicago. My student body speaks over 60 different languages. Just in my ESL World Studies class, I have students from 15 different countries. When I decided to participate in this particular chat, I was extremely excited. As a school we try to celebrate all our student's roots including our Hispanic student body.

The chat is lead by Lindsey Foster with Discovery Education Network. They lead a varied of educational chats on Thursday nights. They have a variety of topics, from Global Citizenship to the one I participated in tonight about Hispanic Heritage. The resources she shared for Hispanic Heritage were from Discovery Education Network. When I browsed their resources there was a Social Studies section that got me excited. The only downfall is it looks like the resources need to be bought. As we all know, us teacher really like those free resources!

How Did my First Live Twitter Chat Go?

The only downfall from this chat was that it was only between the moderator, myself, and only one other person. Not many resources were shared that I could take away with me. I shared my resources and got an idea for the DEN resources for purchase.

Last Thoughts.

While exploring and slowly struggling through twitter for a while, I did find a bunch of cool resources through random hashtags and educational handle. Its nice scrolling at your leisure and coming across things you can you in your classroom. My particular chat, which I was pretty excited to be a part of due to the diversity of my school,  was not as informative as I wish it would have been.

Resources

Tweet Deck Tutorial

List of Educational Chats

Discovery Education Network