Twitter Chats

So you’re on Twitter, but you’re struggling to connect with a wider audience or to just make a personal connection in general? Like any social media, once you’re on Twitter you could spend as much or as little time actually diving into the program itself. You know you want to make connections with other educators, but you’re not sure how? Then Twitter chats are your answer! Not sure what I’m talking about? No, I don’t mean just communicating back-and-forth with other educators on Twitter.

Twitter chats are a way to connect people with specific interests and are centered around a hashtag.

By now you have probably seen a few recurring educational hashtags pop up or you’ve used them yourself. For those of you that have been with me for a while may remember that I got on Twitter thanks to Adam Welcome’s book, Kid’s Deserve It. In order to start my Twitter community, I joined their weekly #KidsDeserveIt conversation on Wednesday nights. This allowed me to connect with educators all over the world, see different view points, and share my own ideas, and gather project ideas/tips/tricks for my own classroom.

Weekly chats are centered around a specific topic and typically have about 4 questions that are asked in a 30 minute time period. Someone hosts the conversation and participants respond to each question with the appropriate hashtag at the end of their answer. The hashtag allows all the responses to the questions to be tracked together. This way if you can’t make the chat, you search the hashtag and can read through the responses later, or you can engage with other people throughout the week by using the hashtag.

Are you intrigued by this professional development type of conversation on Twitter? I mean, it’s from your couch! Is there any other better type of professional development out there?! Below is a list of my favorite Twitter chats for you to get started. Pick one. I promise, you won’t regret it. I bet you’ll even find yourself trying to engage in more chats as time goes on!

#edtechchat Mondays 8pm EST (30 minute chat)

#tlap Mondays 9pm EST (1 hour chat)

#BeTheOne Wednesdays 8:45pm EST (15 minute chat)

#KidsDeserveIt Wednesdays 9pm EST (30 minute chat)

#PrimarySTEMchat Thursdays 6:30am EST (30 minute chat)

Are you looking for a more comprehensive list of chats on Twitter? Check out this amazing calendar made by educators that lists all education chats on Twitter!

Are you not on Twitter yet, but you want to learn more about why you should be? Read my blog - Why Join Twitter?