7-2 Using Twitter as a PLN

How can Twitter be used for professional growth in education?

Twitter can be used as a personal/professional learning network for professional growth in education (for both students and teachers). Teachers can use Twitter to follow other professionals around the world to get ideas and inspiration. They can use Twitter chats to discuss specific topics with other teachers based on the chat hashtag and scheduled time of week. Teachers can also research various hashtags in order to stay up to date with the latest trends, ideas, or best practices in relation to a specific education topic.  Being able to connect with other teachers or professionals in the field helps the teacher to expand their knowledge and improve their classroom practices. In regard to student use, students can help kickstart their professional growth by following people who are in a career path that they themselves would like to go into some day. This can help them to start networking with the right people in order to figure out the steps they need to take to get into the career they are interested in. In addition, they can follow hashtags about the specific career or general career path they are interested in to learn more about it before fully committing to a post-secondary education program. During the school day, students can also have Twitter chats as a class to discuss a certain assignment or topic. This can help to open their eyes to different perspectives.

Five Pros:

1. You can follow professionals in your field from around the world (or students can follow professionals from their prospective career path) to make your feed richer with quality posts.

2. You can collaborate and also ask for advice from other professionals through posts or Twitter chats.

3. Teachers and students can continuously get updates on trends and best practices in education (or their prospective career path).

4. Many people are familiar with Twitter (Although, I am not since I am lame. Haha.) so it feels less daunting to find professional resources on this platform.

5. Twitter can be used on computers, tablets, and phones. Therefore, it is more easily accessible than platforms that are only able to be used on a web browser on a computer.

Five Cons:

1. Keeping separate accounts so that social life and educational life do not get intertwined could be aggravating, especially if you find something that you like and you’re logged into the opposite account.

2. If you are not a Twitter user (which I am not), you have to remember to use all of the @ and # for tweeting at certain accounts and for tagging certain topics. So, if you are not familiar with Twitter, then you could misuse it and not get the results you intended to get.

3. The posts are limited to a certain amount of characters so if you write too many words, it turns into another tweet which could be confusing to knew users or aggravating users want to see the entire post displayed.

4. Students can get distracted and start looking up social things instead of staying on topic.

5. As with other social media, once you post it is out there for the world to see and it is hard to retract it after that point. This could lead into a conversation about digital footprints.

2 thoughts on “7-2 Using Twitter as a PLN

  1. One of the things that have been mentioned a lot within the discussions is the aspect of keeping a professional and a personal Twitter account. Admittedly, I do not do this, but I’m beginning to think that I should. As I am tweeting (either professionally or personally), I know that my Twitter is public so I keep in mind that EVERYONE can see my tweets, as you mentioned. I’ll definitely think more about a dual account! Do you think you will keep your Twitter active?

  2. Great point on students following those that are in a career that the student is interested in! It would be a useful for students to follow a few in other careers that they might kind of be interested in. Seeing the stories can help many students on their path to the next level. I know many students have a tough time deciding what to do after high school. I mean I don’t blame them, it’s a tough decision to make at a young age that some may feel stuck with for years. Seeing those tweets of experts can be a huge help!

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