For the past couple of years I have avoided Twitter, because of, well, you know. But I am starting to realize I’ve missed an entire community of Twitter that has so much to offer.
I am a Pinterest fiend and anytime I want to get my creative juices flowing, I turn to the great multitude of Pins. Pinterest is largely for people designing their dream wedding, or workouts, or healthy food, or your #ootd. As a lifelong learner and soon to be an educator, I want to be a part of a community of fellow learners and educators. Twitter, enter stage left.
Until very recently, I saw Twitter as a platform for political rants and live updates of your favorite minor league baseball team. Now I see that Twitter, and the people who Tweet, have so much more to offer than the most publicized Tweets. Twitter has become the mecca for educators: a creative incubator for innovation. Over the next, however many years I teach, I will need the great minds of others to help me when my brain says “nope”. I could spend hours searching through blogs and websites, trying to find the exact solution to my problem. Or, I could simply type my conundrum, in 140 (now 280) characters, into the Twitterverse and receive a response almost immediately.
Until very recently, I saw Twitter as a platform for political rants and live updates of your favorite minor league baseball team. Now I see that Twitter, and the people who Tweet, have so much more to offer than the most publicized Tweets. Twitter has become the mecca for educators: a creative incubator for innovation. Over the next, however many years I teach, I will need the great minds of others to help me when my brain says “nope”. I could spend hours searching through blogs and websites, trying to find the exact solution to my problem. Or, I could simply type my conundrum, in 140 (now 280) characters, into the Twitterverse and receive a response almost immediately.
Twitter opens up so many networking opportunities for educators, but it is also a platform for students to interact with the greater scientific community. This article published in 2016, discusses the benefits of using Twitter as a discussion platform for students. They also introduced the hashtag, #scistuchat, “a monthly Twitter discussion between scientists and students that addresses many of the core ideas in the biological sciences”. https://twitter.com/SciStuChat
I am excited to delve into the deep recesses of knowledge found through Twitter, and to use it as a tool in the classrooms. By connecting students with active scientists in the world, they have a concrete end goal in mind - someone they can aspire to be.
Some science Twitter accounts:
Lee Ferguson
Mrs. Biology
Some science Twitter accounts:
Lee Ferguson
Mrs. Biology
YEAH! So glad you had an opportunity to see a very positive side of Twitter. It gets its media attention from the very negative site...but there is so much great sharing happening on the platform from teachers....very powerful community there for sure.
ReplyDelete