To be honest, I was skeptical about unconferences in general because I had been to plenty of professional development meetings and conferences in the past and this sounded a lot like those same gatherings. Instead of going I thought I would play it safe and just plug into Twitter and see what was going on for a few minutes. Man, I missed out on a great day.
In one of my previous posts, I ranted about how I never really liked Twitter so even attending this unconference via Twitter seemed like a waste of time at first. I logged on an typed in the hashtag #edcampla at the time it was supposed to start and only saw a few Tweets. I was not impressed. So I logged off and then came back on a couple hours later to see that same hashtag blowing up with apps, websites, ideas, quotes, videos and other teachers I could follow. I started poking around a little bit and started to get interested. I even mustered up to retweet my first tweet! And wouldn't you know it, they turned around and started following me.
I didn't realize how easy Twitter would be and how quickly teachers and other educational professionals would listen to me and begin following me. I felt like I didn't really have much to contribute yet, so I just retweeted a bunch of tweets and asked a question or two. After that day I came away with at least two new ideas to use in the classroom and 5-6 new followers.
Since then, I have been checking my Twitter feed daily and to my surprise the people I'm following have a lot of great ideas, websites, and apps to share. It's basically free and exciting professional development on my schedule. My mentality towards unconferences and Twitter has definitely changed for the better and I quickly saw how power Twitter can be when used in the right way.
When a large group of people with a similar passion are connected, amazing things can happen, and that is what Twitter is beginning to do for me.
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