Actually, I thought Twitter was a big joke before recently. I mean, updating your "status" every five seconds to let your friends in on the new color of your toe nails or that you just love "so-and-so" with all your heart was not my idea of professional development. Truth of the matter was that I had no idea about all the good that came from using Twitter.
Twitter was forced upon me by the professor of my social media course at Hopkins. I didn't get it, and I wasn't willing to try. I hated the idea mostly because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I was supposed to believe that "tweeting" was going to make me a better teacher for my students. HA!
Little did I know that Twitter would allow me to access so many more useful resources for me and for my students. To be quite honest, I didn't begin to feel this way until about two or three days ago. I was reading the conversations on Twitter from other teachers about their ideas and implementation of social media in their classroom, and I was inspired to do so much more for my students.
Unfortunately, my students don't all have access to phone nor the internet, but I want to give them as many opportunities possible to be a apart of "the network." Many of my students are already on the losing end of the achievement gap having had minimal resources and teachers who do not challenge them because they don't believe in them. By refusing to learn and incorporate social media into my curriculum, my students may fall even further behind their peers of more affluent communities.
My responsibility to my students is greater than having been introduced to Twitter. There is an entire world that my students need to experience and social media in the classroom brings the world to them. As difficult as it may be for me to adjust, I need to remember that I am very capable of doing this, and above all, I need to do it for my students' sake.
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