Twitter for Professional Development

Twitter is a social network where you can share your thoughts in 140 characters or less. As most people know, you can follow your favorite celebrity, athlete or political figure. You can also find articles from your favorite magazines, websites and bloggers. What many people do not realize, is that Twitter can also be a social learning network. I am now following five hashtags on my Tweetdeck that serve as a means for professional development. Each hashtag is relevant to me, an educator and trainer who works in the field of educational technology for higher education and corporate training. Below, I have listed the five hashtags, resources I have discovered and what I have learned from the process.

1.  #Edtech - This chat includes educators from around the world who engage in a weekly chat to discuss all things education and share ideas and resources.
2.  #ATD - The Association of Talent Development is a Community of Practice for professional trainers. The ATD hashtag allows to me to keep up on news from the field of professional training and talent development. For example, I am always informed of seminars and webinars that I can attend. 
3.  #HigherEducation - This hashtag is used by people in higher education to share news for students and instructors on the happenings in the world of higher ed. I found that this hashtag is more about the business of higher education than actual learning in higher education. 
4.  #studentengagment - The student engagement hashtag is used by people who value student engagement and student engagement tools and techniques. 
5.  #edchat -  #Edchat is the weekly Twitter conversation that any educator can join to discuss and learn about current teaching trends, how to integrate technology, transform their teaching, and connect with educators worldwide. Participants also discuss education policy and education reform.

Three things that I gained from following these hashtags, thus far, are resources which have served as professional development. This first resource is really awesome because it actually was part of two hashtags (#ATD and #edtech). The article, found here, crosses over both my professional and educational fields. Another cool resource that I discovered via Twitter was this article in the #studentengagement column. Coincidentally, it explains how social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Periscope can enhance student engagement. The third resource that I discovered via Twitter fell under the #edchat column. The blog post, was shared in the weekly #edchat and the author is a teacher. In his post, he shared an awesome matrix with his research-supported "The Rules for Learning".


What I learned most about this process is the value of Twitter as part of my Personal Learning Network and finding where I fit in within a community of practice. Twitter and the use of hashtags delivers a non-stop stream of resources, news and ideas in whichever field or topic I would like. I chose the five hashtags above because they are relevant to my own education and professional development. I found this is much easier than searching the web for articles about professional training or educational technology. The other benefit that I found from using Twitter hashtags, is that the content shared most often comes from people not only in my same career field of ed tech, but they are often in the same position as me. Therefore, the resources and ideas which they share are applicable to my daily life at work.

I learned that by Twitter is another tool or "place" where communities of practice can work together toward a common purpose. By using hashtags, you can easily find information shared by those within you CoP. You can also make it easier for people within your CoP to locate information that you share by using hashtags with relevant posts.

Overall, I think that Twitter is an excellent place for professionals to learn about their craft from other professionals. It is certainly an up-to-the-minute stream of knowledge and ideas that can be found and sorted using Tweetdeck and searching hashtags. It can be a bit overwhelming because the information streams in non-stop and one could never keep up. However, I think that Twitter is just one "tool", in the PLN, If you don't try to take in every single piece of information that comes across your timeline, it is convenient and relevant.