Digging Deeper into the Twitter World

Having had more time to spend on Twitter these past few weeks, I have seen how relevant much of the information is to concepts I am studying in my education classes. I recently had an assignment for my Edu 335 class to pick a topic that connects to middle school in a significant way, and then to prepare a 15 to 20-minute presentation about my research. The topic I choose was social and emotional learning (SEL). After having completed my research, I felt like somewhat of an “expert,” so I decided to find a BCEd chat on Twitter that centered around SEL. I felt confident entering this chat, like I had constructive words to contribute to the chat, having already taken the time to research and present on the topic. I was also interested in joining this chat to see what others had to say on the topic. I was glad to see we were all on the same page with our thinking on SEL. One of the most important components of SEL that was discussed was how teachers are key to making the classroom a safe and comfortable environment for kids. Teachers need to model these SEL skills every day, being very intentional and inclusive with all students. One of the question asked in the chat that I found interesting was “What does social emotional learning mean to you?” and “Do you define it differently than when you 1^st started working w/it?” For me, I know I only had a surface understanding of the topic until I took the time to research it for my presentation, so I was interested to hear some of the teachers in the chat would answer this question. I agreed with the one teacher who mention she had felt initially that SEL was just about teaching strategies. I too felt this way before I saw examples of implementing the skills in classrooms. Through my research, I saw how classroom environments improved greatly after SEL skills were implemented across all classrooms, in a school, on a daily basis, rather than just by giving the skills an hour a week in the curriculum. As one teacher mentioned in the chat “I open my room and my heart,…everyday, on purpose.” Intentionally coaching students, and then modeling SEL skills were practices that teachers on this chat mentioned they were putting into practice each and every day in their classrooms. It is always encouraging to see something you have taken time to research actually being put into action, like the SEL skills are by the teachers on this chat.

I found it exciting to be able to share through Twitter my experience visiting my sister’s classroom when I was given the opportunity to teach a short lesson on the “American Dream” by using my digital story from our Tech in Ed class. I also shared my flipped classroom project on my Twitter feed. Sharing these pieces of my own experiences through Twitter helped me to feel more of a personal connection to my Twitter feed. My feed was now not only posts, comments or retweets from others, but now I had contributed my own material onto my feed too. It was fun to then also see that my sister retweeted my posts to her school’s Twitter page too.

One of the history sites I follow is NASA History. This site posts what happened on this day in the past with NASA. Interestingly, I had to do a lesson plan for my Secondary History Methods class on missions to the moon, and men who walked on the moon. I found the information on this site to be extremely helpful as I put together my material for the lesson, like the picture of Alan Shepard that NASA History posted on Shepard’s birthday, and the note they included that he was the only Mercury astronaut to actually walk on the moon. I was also able to scroll through the feed and find many facts to include in my lesson. Then, since November 13^th is the 50^th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 12, the post on the 13,^th stated this fact and gave details of Apollo 12’s mission. I was also able to incorporate these facts into my lesson too. It has been great to make direct connections to a topic I see on Twitter, and then be able to integrate that information into my current work, and then also share it with others by retweeting it too.