Twitter and a Mini-poll.
Published on January 8, 2008
What are the major challenges facing American public education right now?
The second questions is for Utahns and other informed parties that know what happened here last year with school choice and school vouchers.
After the voucher vote this last year, do you intend to vote for different legislature members this year?
Please respond to these two questions in the comments. You can post anonymously, if you feel so inclined.
Now on to the good stuff. I have been using Twitter since the middle of December. To be honest, I don't know how I got started on it. I think that it might have been from my friend, Chris, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it was about the same time that I started using Facebook. Facebook mostly helped me get better at Scrabble (and connect with some old friends, I guess). The best thing about Twitter is that I have been using it a lot to help me get ideas for teaching. I mostly just read what other people mention, and I have met some really neat people and learned so much I don't even know where to begin.
I am collaborating with another middle school teacher in Kansas on a wiki for the presidential primaries. I also got connected with some other edutech bloggers here in Utah, in my district even, and that is really neat also. I have felt so alone recently because I don't feel like anyone in my district, even the tech guy at my school, is very social web literate or even interested in it. I just recently learned that one other person at my school does have a blog, but it is private and I have not received an invitation. I also have found other middle school teachers on twitter and that helps also because I can bounce ideas off of them as well as get brand new ideas from them.
I am so impressed with how kind the community has been in helping me out and using it as a tool to help others. I enjoy knowing that many of my questions are answered without too much waiting.