2. Find chats that are right for you
These days there are Twitter chats on virtually every topic for every time zone—from #4thchat, a chat specific to fourth grade teachers to #makerED, a discussion group centered around the burgeoning maker movement—so finding an interesting one shouldn’t be a problem. To make the search even easier, Murray and his PLN connected with one of the brains behind Google Apps who helped them create a comprehensive, Google-fied spreadsheet, which lets you see the often 30+ chats a day at a glance and switch between time zones. “It gives you perspective on how much is going on the education world, the dedication, and the conversations taking place,” Murray says.
3. Take time to get the hang of it
Murray says that educators rarely jump in feet first and become overnight power users. Instead, they usually follow a three-step process. “I call it lurk, learn, lead,” he says. “First people lurk. They get setup with something like Twitter, at a professional learning day or with a friend, and they’re in that ‘Whats in it for me?’ mentality. What happens is they start to learn: they see people sharing resources and people that are doing things in their classroom that they can use. If I’m on Twitter, I can connect with people all over the world.” Finally, he says, some begin to assume leadership roles, from moderating chats to showing new users the ropes.
4. Google+ is great for educators. Really.
While it was never in any danger of replacing Facebook for most people, Google+ has found a second life among educators who use the site to create multiple PLNs where they can engage in richer conversations and also filter their posts by circles. Part of that is because Google is already such a big part of the fabric of ed tech, Anderson says. Another reason? “It’s an extension of something educators are already doing. For very few people, I believe, it’s an exclusive place they’re going, but it’s this kind of add-on social network to something else. They’re already on Twitter, having those conversation and starting those threads, and then they’re going into more depth on Google+.”
5. Find conversations by searching hashtags
It’s not just Twitter users that benefit from an intentional hashtag search. Google+ uses the feature, too, often reusing the same hashtags, such as #edchat, which helps new users cut through some of the noise. “Hashtags will expose you to lots of great people who are equally as valuable, or could be more valuable, than the people with huge followings,” Andserson says.
Next page: How to go deeper than 140 characters
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