What a difference a year makes-Twitterversary

Yesterday was my 1st year Twitterversary and this has made me reflect on how using twitter has changed my life.

Now that sounds very dramatic but it has; especially when it comes to my professional life as a teacher.

In the past year using Twitter has:

• Informed me of TeachMeets, events and conferences that I never knew existed-I even helped organise a TeachMeet (#TMX) and presented at the first TeachMeet I attended (#tmmoodle). I am now a regular at TeachMeets and really enjoy learning from other teachers and sharing my own classroom experiences.
• Shared tools, learning opportunities and helped me develop teaching ideas for my classroom
• Given me a platform to discuss and reflect upon my own classroom practice and teaching /education as a profession
• Allowed me to take part in crowd-sourced projects that have given me reasons to develop my own Art and Illustration skills (for example #ukedchat and #pgcetips where I designed the illustrations for the book)
• Helped me connect with hundreds of inspiring and engaging individuals.

Of course it is not Twitter that has actually enabled all these things to happen, it is the individuals that I follow and follow me back and the dialogue between us. Twitter is only the platform - it is the people that matter.

I feel that 1 year on I am a better teacher, not only because of the opportunities to reflect and learn from others that have arisen, also because of the confidence I have developed to experiment and question the learning in my classroom.

The most important thing that I will take away from my first year of Twitter is how much goodwill there is still in the world and how supportive communities of people are.