In terms of ICT, I’m still very much a beginner. However, with a mentor Jenny Luca also known as @jennyluca on Twitter and other educators who are SHARERS, my professional development has been enormous. My latest learning curve has been using Twitter to make contact with education professionals worldwide to help develop me in this area. I’d like to say I share a lot on Twitter, but at present I’m more of a follower. I follow some amazing educators who have a real passion for what they do. And ‘yes’, I do have people following me, obviously in hope that I contribute more. My ‘tweets’ are mostly thanking people for sharing something with me. However, this will change!
When I want to know something I simply ‘tweet’ what I’m trying to find out and people respond. I recently wanted to know how I could get a screen shot of a website to use in this blog, as I was having problems with certain programs. @Dirkk who lives in Germany responded and sent a link to his site. I’ve used Aviary, as @Dirkk recommended and it worked. ‘Ah’, the power of the web! As a thank you to Dirkk, my first screenshot is his link!
Educators share their knowledge and expertise on Twitter and it’s the notion of sharing that I find uplifting. Today @Pam_Thompson sent out a ‘tweet’ about a wiki she has created for teachers at her school to build upon. I followed the link and it’s excellent. The wiki has links to interactive games that I’ve never seen before and as I’m teaching myself about wikis at the moment, this was just what I needed to see. Pam could have kept this for her staff, instead she put it out for others. This is what Twitter is about for me.
When I started using Twitter I couldn’t see its value, as I’m not interested in who’s having coffee with who, however, when I discovered that I could network with teaching professionals worldwide, ‘I changed my tune’. I now follow some 100 professionals including world news channels and have about 95 people following me.
Cheers Nina
If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m @ninadavis.
Nina Davis: Teaching & Learning in Australia 