Why Are You Still Not on Twitter? #KidsDeserveIt

***Disclaimer: We want to make clear from the get-go that this blog is not a place where we’re just going to challenge you to use technology tools.  We did want to have our first posts provide you with ideas on how YOU can join the conversations!  Here goes, take a risk!

-It Can All Start With Just One Tweet -

In the last three weeks we’ve attended several different conferences, ACSA local conference in California, iPadPalooza in Texas, and the National NAESP in Long Beach. At all of these conferences, every keynote speaker talked about the importance of connecting on Twitter. US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, even held a Twitter chat last week during NAESP! At ACSA and NAESP the entire audience both times were school administrators, mainly site Principals.

If Anthony Muhammad, Michael Fullan, Erik Wahl, Guy Kawasaki, Adam Bellow, and Heidi Hayes Jacobs are talking about Twitter so blatantly, why are so many educators still not on Twitter? If you are Tweeting, have you had this conversation with your colleagues?! If you have had the conversation, and they’re still not listening, it’s time to have it again! Kids Deserve It, and we’ll tell you why.

Our students are growing up in a digital world.  A world that is rapidly changing. We must learn to speak their language.  Our kids are living on sites like Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and more.  We can’t allow ourselves to become digitally illiterate. It’s our duty as educators to understand, push, and develop our students to be relevant and future ready!

We realize the majority of people reading this post probably ARE on Twitter. We're asking you to download our PDF HERE, print out (or email) and give to your colleagues and let’s work together to get them signed-up.

Why Twitter?

• Connect your community and connect with your community, all from your device!
• Share Donors Choose grants! They get funded unbelievably quick when you’re connected!
• Build community with your school, you know it best!  Don’t let someone else control the message of your campus.
• Connect your classrooms globally! What better way to foster an environment of connected global learning then by sharing and collaborating online.
• If you work in a district with only ten other administrative colleagues, Twitter just gave you thousands more to collaborate and learn from!
• Twitter represents opportunity, you can connect with 250 people, or 2,500 - the choice is yours!
• Mobile to mobile communication, do it all from your phone.
• Twitter is not just an echo chamber, you will find people that challenge you and provide an amazing support system.
• We use it to network as professionals, now it’s about connecting, Twitter bridges and enhances that.
• It connects you with other “learners” from all over the world. What better way to help you grow then surrounding yourself with the best and brightest in the field?
• It doesn’t take long at all.  The argument of “not enough time” is rendered moot when it comes to Twitter. When you’re more connected, you think differently, kids deserve that innovation.
• When you’re leading and learning with Twitter, you can have much deeper digital citizenship conversations with students to help them make positive choices!
• It’s not that complicated.  Don’t know how to Tweet?  Don’t know what a hashtag is or which one to use?  Don’t know who to connect with?  GOOGLE IT!  There are countless YouTube and Vimeo instructional videos that will show you how!

Is Face to Face Professional Development valuable? Of course it is. There are limitations however and the notion of Professional Development has changed completely.  With tools like Twitter, we now have the opportunity to connect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for FREE.  No longer do we have to wait to attend PD where the majority is delivered in a “sit-and-get” environment.

With a tool like Twitter, you’re able to:

• Participate in Twitter chats using hashtags.
• Connect with other educators from all over the world.
• How much interaction happens after the PD is completed?  Follow-up is so important, and tools like Twitter, make that happen.
• If you are attending a conference, chat with people who are attending beforehand. Build relationships, learn together, then have amazing follow-up conversations.
• Imagine attending a conference and wanting to attend multiple sessions all at the same time!  Which session do you choose?  What if you miss something? When people tweet out at PD/Conferences/Trainings using hashtags we’re all able to learn together and gather ideas from any session we want to!
• Not able to attend a conference?  No worries!  You can learn from your couch as you follow the hashtags for the event.

It changed with just one Tweet!

So what’s next?  Since we know most of the people reading this are probably on Twitter, why did we write this post?  We wrote it in hopes that you could download the PDF found HERE, print it out or email it, and give it to your colleagues.  Let’s get everyone connected so we can all learn and grow together, because the Kids Deserve It.

And don’t forget to share your stories.  Use the hashtag #KidsDeserveIt to share how you’re connecting, why you use Twitter, and what you’re doing to get others connected. You can also follow @KidsDeserveIt to continue connecting with us!