The Same, but Different

I attended my first saskedchat last night and wow that was a wild ride! I jumped in with no previous knowledge that anything like this even existed. It was super cool to see just how many people were eager to get on there, answers some questions, engage with other educators and in turn, increase their Personal Learning Network (PLN). I also found it really interesting that we got to #5 trending in Canada! What a great way to get everyone engaged in a great educational discussion. It was extremely fast paced, with so much information and resources being shared, that the time just flew by. I couldn’t believe how quickly a whole hour had went by. I am so grateful for being introduced to this twitter chat, and I will definitely be back again. What a fun way to engage with so many people with the common goal of educating others and themselves. Clearly, I feel as though this is a fantastic professional development tool. Before taking EDTC 300, I had no idea how to use twitter for professional development or how beneficial it could be in a classroom/educational setting. I am definitely starting to see just how advantageous using social media such as twitter within the classroom could be! It is such a fun way to get students engaged in learning (sometimes without even realizing all the valuable information that they are taking in at the time). Before this class I had only used twitter as my own personal social media to find funny or relatable tweets to like/retweet and share for my friends to see. I was definitely what we call a “lurker”, never tweeting or really adding to the conversation at all, rather just reading and liking others’ posts. This class has definitely empowered me to see the professional development that can be done through forms of social media that I already use for my personal use. It is really interesting to learn how to use online resources for positive growth and development, rather than just for mindless fun and a way to spend my time without much coming out of it.