Tuesday, August 7, 2012

How Does #Edchat Connect Educators? « My Island View

How Does #Edchat Connect Educators? « My Island View:


How Does #Edchat Connect Educators?

For educators who have been connected since the early days of social media, it is difficult to understand the reason people would ask, “What is #Edchat?” We must remember that many educators using social media for professional reasons have joined only recently. The idea of using social media for professional reasons is a relatively new concept. One would hope that it is having a positive effect because the Department of Education declared August Connected Educators Month. In our technology-driven culture, sometimes we need to stop where we are and take time to consider how we got here.
#Edchat began on Twitter three years ago. Like dog years, three years in social media time is much longer. Back then, there were far fewer educators exchanging ideas on Twitter. Twitter was only beginning to emerge as a serious method of collaboration for educators. Celebrities dominated the network and got great media coverage about their tweets. Serious use of Twitter by educators for collaboration was never covered by the media. It was