Hello Everyone,

Last night, I participated in my second Twitter chat!

Compared to my first chat, two aspects of participation were easier, and one was slightly more difficult. I found it easier during this second time to filter out the side conversations happening while participants were answering the moderator’s questions; I even joined one side conversation with some LME classmates attending the chat. We tweeted about needing more space for our personal book collections and the necessity of staying current with technology. I was also more at ease with using abbreviations, symbols, and fragments in my tweets, even using “ts” for teachers and “ss” for students to conserve characters. Through a moderator’s tweet before the chat, I thought I had found a picture of the questions which were going to be asked. During my first Twitter chat, it had helped me not be pressured by the time constraints to have answered pre-typed and ready to post. I was able to focus more on seeing others’ responses than on my writing. This time, however, the moderator did not use all of the questions previously generated. Since I had not seen some of the questions beforehand, it was slightly more difficult to gather information from the tweets of everyone else because I had to process and respond to new questions.

Personally, I felt the topic of the chat, “School Libraries in the 21^st Century,” was very appropriate considering my recent introduction to the historical background of public and school libraries. Questions covered the gamut from “what should we keep from the 20^th century” to “how could you create an environment of exploration in your space.” Participants were also able to voice what they would change tomorrow about their libraries if they could; one person responded to that question that she would have dry erase table tops, while another expressed longing to have an assistant so she was no chained to checkout. Following a side conversation, I learned that some teachers and library media specialists have their students engage in “spine poetry,” where students pull books from the shelves and use the titles on the spines to write poems. One participant, in response to “what evidence do you see of a community center in your space,” mentioned a posse of students from different grade levels sharing books with each other in the mornings. Another said the library media center has a coding club and is a Minecraft hangout. Following another side conversation about student self-checkout, I saw one colleague support another who was apprehensive about trying such a system with her students. The encourager suggested trying the system with one grade and having a student monitor oversee the process; she continued with the thought-provoking statement: “so what if a mistake is made? Libns make mistakes too.” It was wonderful to “see” the camaraderie between professionals as colleagues; the interaction I watched makes me appreciate technology as a tool for professional learning communities.

Hooray for the vast amount of information available through technology, such as Twitter! I am looking forward to my next chat.

Enthusiastically,

Ms. Tyler

Hello Everyone,

Last night, I finally participated in a Twitter chat!

Through a moderator’s tweet before the chat, I found the questions which were going to be asked. The post on the #KyLChat blog helped me formulate the answers to the questions I felt I could answer ahead of time, so I was not pressured by the second ticking by after the question had been tweeted. Working in my iPad for the chat, I typed my answers into Google Docs and then pasted them into the “Post Tweet” dialog box when it was appropriate to post my answer. It was difficult to confine myself to the maximum 140 characters allowed in some of my tweets. I had to resort to abbreviations, symbols, and fragments, aspects typical of social networking the grammarian in me abhors. For example, to answer the question “What is a teacher leader?” I was forced to tweet my thought like this:

A1: Teacher leader = invested in student learning & success + confident sharing information & resources with colleagues. #kylchat

rather than:

A1: A teacher leader is one who is invested in student learning and success while being confident in sharing information with resources with colleagues. #kylchat

Although there are actually few differences between the tweets, I had to force myself to write succinctly, giving purpose to each character. Now I am beginning to see why some teachers starting in the upper elementary grades encourage or require students’ use of a Twitter-style exit slip, since the character confines make students demonstrate their understanding of a concept briefly. The exercise also helps students attach value to each word used in writing, so as to avoid meaningless ramblings.

The topic of the chat, “Librarian as Teacher Leader in the Digital Age,” was informative and exposed me to several resources being used to teach digital citizenship, such as Digital Passport and Common Sense Media, and to curate digital resources, such as Smore and Symbaloo. These are all resources I wish to investigate in the future.

The only difficulty I encountered was mentally filtering the answers to the questions from the side conversations happening between individuals on related topics. It took a little time for my brain to adjust to the side conversations, and the question and answer numbering system was helpful in making the differentiation. Overall, the experience was fast-paced, interesting, and beneficial. I look forward to participating in additional Twitter chats with the hashtag #KyLChats or another hashtag, since there also seem to be chats related to #KyEdChats.

Enthusiastically,

Ms. Tyler

P.S. If anyone would like to follow me on Twitter, my username is @readlearngrow14.

P.S.S. If Twitter is still a foreign language, there is a glossary at: https://support.twitter.com/articles/166337-the-twitter-glossary#!