Twitter saved my career

Wow! What a powerful statement. Really? Twitter did? You might ask, "How so?"

Well, I'm a brand new bird in the land of Twitter. Hesitant to begin, I stayed away from it for many reasons. My first reason for staying away was lack of knowledge. Ignorance. Secondly, my district along with many teaching communities recommended that as educators that we stay away from all social networking sites. The fear is "you might do something stupid and lose your job".

That is a very interesting oxymoron. You are probably wondering how I can state that Twitter saved my job when one of the reasons for staying away from it was the fear of losing my job. Yeah. You're right. Very interesting opposing statements, but it's true.

My flight path to Twitter was really quite a quick one. I didn't realize just how close the destination was when you truly fly the path of "as a crow flies." Taking the road to the world of social networking was much longer simply because roads take us around very concrete things. You must twist and wind down the road and avoid obstacles. Obstacles such as ignorance.

When I found out that my 65 year old FATHER had a Facebook account, I was in awe. If my FATHER could have a Facebook account, why couldn't I? A better question was why shouldn't I? Is fear really a big enough reason?

Look. I'm a responsible adult. I was a responsible college student. In fact, I was a responsible child and teenager as well. I truly had nothing to hide. Besides that, I am a responsible and conscientious professional - even in my private life. So, it was with that thought process I moved to the world of Facebook despite the opinion of my union and my district.

I'm still teaching. And I'm still doing a darn good job. Now Facebook has not revolutionized my teaching. It's simply a personal and social tool I'm using to keep connected to all of those people who have flown across my path in life.

Just about a month ago, though, I discovered the tree tops of Twitter. I peaked into this world when a teacher from the Edmodo PLN (I believe this means = Professional Learning Network) shared a youtube video on why educators should Tweet. My spirits were lifted and my teaching was raised to newer heights. I had no idea it was a really good tool for building my PLN and my career.

In this short time, I have educated myself on a number of topics including social networking in the classroom, using technology in education, making global connections, and how to improve myself as an educator. I think the latter is the best thing that has happened since flying through these trees.

I am now sharing with my colleagues about topics of which they are not familiar that they find intriguing. Additionally, I'm becoming more reflective about what I teach and how I teach it. I'm also connecting more with my students. After teaching for nearing 14 years, I've become a little out of touch with the students I teach. I no longer listen to their music, I'm not very familiar with the shows they watch, and I certainly didn't understand the world they were living in - even the virtual worlds they had come accustomed to.

Recently I even participated - for the very first time in my career - in a video conference (in my living room) with the English Teaching Guru, Jim Burke. I'd done research on Jim while doing my action research project for the National Writing Project Fellowship. I knew he was good, and that he was very knowledgeable, but in this situation, I was able to SEE him and HEAR his knowledge. I also got to tap into the knowledge. Earth shattering stuff? Perhaps not, but it was certainly "classroom shattering".

I guess when you get to this point in your teaching career - fourteen years in - you've come to the second wave of a seven-year-itch, and I was feeling a little stale - perhaps even stagnant. But Twitter has opened my professional world up to a plethora of possibilities and has set me on a flight path to discovery. I'm not sure where I might land. One can hope that I end up in a land of opportunity - an untouched rain forest. For now, though, I'm hopeful I can take flight with my students and lead them to a discovery of their own educational experiences - all because I took the daring leap off the branch as a fledgling and spread my wings into the vast blue skies of a better tomorrow.