I have had a short article about using Twitter and your Personal Learning Network (PLN) published in the most recent edition of IB World. You can read the article below – it’s only short, what I submitted was a little longer, but it great to see Twitter and PLNs being mentioned in more traditional media.
Want to develop your peer support network? It’s time to tweet, says Richard Allaway, a humanities teacher at the International School of Geneva, Switzerland. Richard has been teaching geography for eight years and since 2008 he’s been keeping in touch with geographers around the world using online messaging service Twitter.
“Working in a small department in an international school, opportunities for face-to-face professional development can be difficult to access due to the distances involved, the time commitment and the cost.
I was first introduced to Twitter (www.twitter.com) through mentions in blogs I read produced by fellow geographers and people involved in education technology. Everyone’s talking about it at the moment. It’s got around six million registered users, so it’s hard to miss. Users send and read ‘tweets’ – text-based updates that are limited to 140 characters and therefore very focused.
Once you’ve joined, you can build up a network by ‘following’ other users. My Personal Learning Network (PLN) is global, including clusters in Europe, North America and South-East Asia. It includes other geography teachers and educators, people who tweet about topics that interest me and that I am involved in through my teaching.
I tweet to share links to good-quality resources, or something that’s worked well in my classroom that day. I often let people know of any updates I’ve made to my website. Sometimes I tweet for help – a plea for a fresh idea or a link to something I know is out there but just can’t find. I will start teaching the new Diploma Programme geography syllabus this year and I know Twitter will be a definite help.
To find other IB teachers and let them find you, there’s a wiki site where you can enter your details at ib-teachers-using-twitter.wikispaces.com. Any questions, just send me a tweet – my username is @richardallaway.”
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