Whistlepunch and MallowMelts

Four Years on Twitter

I've been tweeting for four years (and actually one day - first tweet was April 9, 2007) now and it has really become the best source of professional development around. When I started, I posted random things about my day - mostly related to tasks I was working on at the University (still a college then) and sometimes questions - but questions don't work until you have followers.  I identified myself as part of the ESL community and began following every ESL "rock star" I could find who had a channel.  I made a list of the great educators I was watching and eventually began to be followed back.  I'm now a part of other people's lists - part of the ESL Twibes, and beginning to feel like I have a Personal Learning Network developed that I can participate in and contribute to.  I still probably retweet other's messages more than contributing my own content but that is more about time than intention. My favourite tweets are ones that inform me of upcoming conference sessions that are being streamed online.  I've been able to participate in sessions around the world and learn about some amazing people and projects this way.  The fact that Twitter just turned 5 a few weeks back and I have been around for four of those years amazes me - something I find so essential in my work day is still so new! 

The other favourite activity that I have on twitter is following along during an event.  If you don't want to know results of awards shows or winners of reality series, stay away but if you want to know what is happening during a session of conference that you are away from the screen for - just watch the tweets roll in.  There was a huge community of LDS tweeting about each speaker, every hymn and the hashtag #ldsconf was trending worldwide during the sessions! I couldn't get video to work for some of the sessions so I listened to the audio and watched the tweet stream instead. 

So Happy Anniversary to my Twitter account.

By the way, if you want a couple of fun "people" to follow on Twitter, try HalfPintIngalls and big_ben_clock.