Image Credit: purple_feather by wiccked on Flickr
Some family trips bring...well...a little too much family. Like the trip when everyone has to share a room because you're staying only one night and no one sleeps a whole lot? You know those trips. Well, it all started with that kind of family trip. Early one morning, stepping out of what would soon feel like the communal shower, I heard my cell phone rumble on the counter. Toweling off it rumbled again...and again...and then again. "Mom, your cell phone is going crazy. Can't you please turn it off," my college-hunting junior exclaimed. "Seriously, mom. What is up with you and your phone," the younger, quite annoyed little sister added. And, then, my husband turned the corner in time to add his two cents: "Oh. Just ignore it. It is just someone tickling your mom."
And so my family was introduced to Twitter.
I've long since turned off those notifications, and I've given up on converting my family. But, with nearly 2000 updates and some 250 following and 400 followers I guess you could say I'm still enjoying the tickling. And, that's about what Twitter boils down to-a tickle. It may be an idea, a quote, a link, an inside joke or a little collegial bantering. It is not a wiz-bang learning tool or a complete filter. But, in the scrolling 140 character bits I connect and some of my learning pathways are forged.
During the month of March several educators and I have decided to have a little extra fun in the tickle chamber. It started out as a back-of-the-napkin brainstorm over nasty Canadian scotch with @dkuropatwa and @datruss at BLC this past summer. How could we share with our educator friends the value of Twitter to build a meaningful network? And how might we have a little fun doing it? An idea was born. We'd agree to spend a month this spring re-tweeting favorite tweets with a special tag and encouraging others to join us. Now with the help of @budtheteacher, @lizbdavis, @suewaters, and @hhg--and many of you who've agreed to help announce this--we are pleased to announce:
#Gr8Tweets for the Month of March
During the month of March we'll be re-tweeting some of the favorite tweets we find each day, and we hope you will as well. The plan is simple: Just mark your tweets with a #gr8t or @gr8t and we'll collect all the gr8tweets via RSS on the gr8tweets wiki. Here you'll find the most recent gr8tweets as well as a link to all the gr8tweets collected throughout the month. You'll also find some resource links to help you understand Twitter as well as a Google form to add your name, Twitter ID, and interests to the growing spreadsheet of educators.
To get you started I took a quick snapshot of my recent Twitter favorites. Take a look, and then get ready... we hope come Sunday you'll begin sharing yours. #gr8t!
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