I knew I needed to be organized, so I made a list. At the top was "topic", after looking through my recent blog posts I decided on, "Essentials For a Successful Elementary Classroom". That was just the beginning, next I brainstormed, jotted down ideas, and wrote questions that I was interested in. I thought it would be an ideal time to get opinions and ideas from other elementary educators.
The previous two times I had moderated a twitter chat, we had simply typed the questions in the 142 character space on Twitter. However, this time I decided to make mine a little "fancier". I designed the questions in Canva so that I wouldn't have to worry about going over the character limit and I could add a little personality to them.
After completing all nine questions, a welcome and thank you, I was ready to rock the chat! Then, I remembered learning about scheduling tweets at a workshop or Edcamp, but had never tried it. I decided this was the perfect time, I used Tweetdeck. After spending at least an hour attaching the questions and scheduling them, I discovered I had not put the hashtag on the tweets! So, I deleted all of them and started over. They were finally loaded and scheduled four days before the chat.
The chat was to begin last Thursday evening at 7:30pm, I remembered at 6:15pm! I quickly double checked Tweetdeck, my tweets were still scheduled, so I got my laptop and ipad ready. At 7:30pm the first tweet rolled out, and the chat began. It was one of the quickest hours of my life!
I am so thankful that I put myself out there; connected, shared, learned, and grew as an educator. I have always thought that I could not encourage others to learn, grow, and try new things if I don't model it in my daily life. The #okelem twitter chat is the first Thursday of each month at 7:30pm, I would encourage you to join in on the fun!
Connect, Share, Learn, and Grow Daily!
Teachingly,
Mrs. Hime
