Professional Learning, Anytime and Anywhere

Early to an appointment at a school?  Potential for professional learning.

Waiting to get my haircut?  Potential for professional learning.

Waiting in line at the grocery store?  Potential for professional learning.

Anytime I have access to my phone, iPad, and the Internet in general I have almost direct access to professional learning sources.  How is that?

I am putting this out there because I truly believe it (and I'll even type it in bold font to show that I'm totally serious): There is no better place for asynchronous/self-paced professional learning than Twitter and Twitter helps me be more effective at what I do.  Period.

October is Connected Educators Month and I wanted share the tool that continues to shape my passion for what I do while, at the same time, allowing me the potential to connect, talk, and share with people across our school district, our state, the United States, and potentially the world.

It's a fact that Twitter itself has useless things on it.  There isn't much on the Internet, especially social media, today that doesn't.  Twitter though, along with many other places, allows users to filter the "noise" by providing the chance to follow and highlight who you want.  Also, with Twitter lists, users can control when they see tweets from other Twitter users while potentially making sure that tweets about like subjects can be found all in one place.  Weekly Twitter hashtag chats allow users to tweet about like topics during particular days and times with people who have similar interests and passions from around the world.  Twitter can very easily be leveraged as a one-way tool as well.  Users don't need to or have to post personal tweets.  Just follow users that share information that's useful to you and that can be it.  These are just a few of the many benefits of using Twitter professionally in some way, shape, or form.

Quite frankly, and in my humble opinion, the excuses for educators/educational leadership for not being a participant on Twitter for professional learning are beginning to dwindle.

I am planning a post series entitled "What Works for Me on Twitter" in the near future that will help you get started and going on Twitter.  I simply wanted to set the stage as a whole with this post.

Stay tuned...

Note: This is a cross post from my CCSD blog, also under our district Google domain.  A link to my blog is here if you're interested in reading a little more about various topics.  Find me on Twitter here and visit and follow one, some, or all of my boards on Pinterest here.  Let's get connected!