I still like the instantaneous newsroom. I was able to get first hand accounts of the earthquake and tsunami scare on the West Coast a few months back for at least an hour before any news networks had any coverage. During the NHL lockout hashtags, like #podiumwatch, kept me up to date, and laughing about, the progress of any upcoming press conferences.
I barely use lists anymore. I still have them, but I find that I barely go to them. I just scroll through my feed. Having reread my feelings about lists from a year ago, perhaps I'll work to get back in the habit.
I feel that I appreciate link sharing even more now. When I started I was mainly following education companies, sports organizations and personalities and friends. Through professional development, courses and twitter itself I have made connections with many individual educators. So many people have an open learning philosophy and share links to things they find useful. I have found them very useful and have been working to share my fair share in return.
Even better than the links are the relationships. Many people feel that the internet isn't real and doesn't count some how, but it's just a new way to get to know people. The glimpses I see of the attitudes, philosophy and professionalism of experienced educators, 140 characters at a time, are a great example and have helped me grow as an educator. I can thank someone for sharing a link or skyping with my class and start a new relationship. I've been able to encourage colleagues to start Tweeting and see them find new ways to improve their teaching. Twitter started as a place I found things - news, scores, resources, but is now a place where I am able to share and learn with people.
I look forward to staying in touch with everyone in the Internet for Educators class throughout our careers with our class hashtag and plan to continue to meet more people and share my learning, successes, struggles and stuff!
Some good hashtags to follow: #edchat #comments4kids #mbedu
I appreciate your tweets Tyler; they often make me chuckle. I view Twitter in very much the same way you do. I take to it when I need to find news now and I love the instant connections that can, and do, happen. I am getting more at ease about tweeting my own "finds". It is a great way to build a PLN and connect globally. I'm glad I stuck with it as well.
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