#Chatting on Twitter…Go Figure!

#Chatting on Twitter…Go Figure!

This week, I experimented and experienced my first Twitterchat. I hate to admit it, but I didn’t really know exactly how to use Twitter. I made an account for school a few years ago, but only used it for a couple of months to follow our professor. After that, I never used my account again (in fact I don’t even remember the account name I made). So this week was a chance for me to revisit Twitter and really delve into what the buzz is all about.

            

I decided to join the #ELTchat on Twitter, which meets every Wednesday, as it was the group chat most relevant to my current professional setting. The Twitterchat lasted a little over an hour, followed by a “slow burn” (i.e. slow activity) of tweets for those who wanted to add on to the conversation afterhours. It was moderated by Marisa Constantinides. Each week, users can suggest topics and ELTchat has a poll in which we could vote from a list of potential topics on their blog; so I love the fact I had a say in what topic would be discussed in the chat. The topic for this week was about teachers teaching pronunciation and the initial tweet posed by our moderator was: “So what frightens people abt teaching pronunciation?”

At first, the flood of tweets coming in became a bit overwhelming. When I wanted to comment on one tweet or issue, a whole new set of tweets came in making my previously intended tweet irrelevant in that moment. Eventually, I got the hang of it and was able to contribute to the discussion and provide some beneficial comments for other educators (I had some liked tweets and one retweet =). I was amazed at the amount of information, practical tips, and resources I was able to gather from other’s tweets in just one hour! Twitter and in particular Twitterchat, seems to be a professional development – or more so— a professional network that I would continue to use in the future.