Twitter Chat Debut: Another Way to Connect

I learned two things last week: 

• Participating in a Twitter chat can be like trying to drink from a firehose. 
• There is no reason for any teacher to feel professionally isolated with a smart phone or computer and internet access.

I know the analogy is no longer fresh and original, but this week I got a new appreciation for it. When members of the National Council of Teachers of English have one hour to discuss via 140-character tweets 6 questions (plus introductions--see #NCTEchat) on Workshopping the Canon (yup, same as the Facebook discussion I wrote about in my previous blog), the tweets fly. I’ve tried coming up with a more original analogy—bottling a tsunami, riding a stampede, wakeboarding with a cruise ship, tobogganing Everest… but nothing else quite captures the feeling of so much good stuff coming at me so fast that it’s nearly impossible to catch any of it. Luckily, it gets captured in an archive on Wakelet (another new e-toy to explore). 

By the time I’d composed one tweet to post, the top of my feed told me that 26 new tweets had been posted. And by the time I’d finished reading those 26, 11 more had been posted. I felt like Lucy working at the chocolate factory, trying to clear the conveyor of candies coming too fast to box, by stuffing them in her mouth! 

 
Several factors didn’t help my confusion. My interface hadn’t yet updated to include the helpful little quill pen icon the directions told me was for composing a tweet (see lower left of screen shot)—that update came the following morning. In addition, though I’d roughly pre-written a few answers, I hadn’t counted characters, so I was chunking and revising on the fly. Finally, it dawned on me when the hour was nearly over that one good reason to re-tweet anything that catches my attention is to more easily find it again later—like book recommendations, article links, or infographics. Yes, I can comb the archive, but I hadn’t fully appreciated how enormous that archive would be! Next time, I’ll be better equipped. 

There will be a next time, because in spite of how overwhelming the deluge of opinions and information felt, it simultaneously felt like connection. Like swimming in a sea of collegial experience—or surfing in it! In those few brief moments of staying on my board and in front of the curl. Yes, I think I finally found my analogy for usefully harnessing a vast power. 

I’ve literally lived on an island where English is a foreign language, with only a handful of other English teachers at my school. Attending the annual conference of the NCTE isn’t a great option (benefit: a couple days of meetings; cost besides money: 24 hours transit on each end, 12 hours’ jet lag, pre-trip sub-lesson planning and post-trip ascertaining what actually happened). However, a Twitter chat is. There are also many other ways I’ve maintained professional connection and growth:

• Professional memberships (NCTE, ASCD)
• Blogs to follow (Cult of Pedagogy, Three Teachers Talk)
• Newsletters (Education SmartBrief, Culture Translator)
• Books (see my reading list for this summer here)
• Blogs to write (see my New Years’ reflections on what and why I blog here and here)
• Book discussions with colleagues (not only on Twitter and Facebook, but also in real time, see this blog)

Besides living on a literal foreign island, there are other factors that can deter professional connection and growth. And there are ways to connect and grow in spite of the obstacles—some that I’ve listed, and more. What works for you? What else would you like to try? It could always be a Twitter chat!