Tips for Joining #Edchat: The Education Conversation
by Shelly Terrell
Every Tuesday on Twitter, over 2000 educators, administrators, parents, and students debate, share resources, ask difficult questions, and collaborate with others on how to improve the condition of education. #Edchat is the hashtag for joining this live conversation, which can be viewed by anyone. We discuss issues from using technology effectively in schools to improving parent engagement. We even have special guests like Alfie Kohn join the conversation to answer questions about topics like competition and homework.
Anyone interested in education can join the conversations by just adding #Edchat to the end of their tweets.
#Edchat Tips
With over 2000 participants, Edchat might feel overwhelming. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of Edchat.
- Vote on the topic every Sunday.
- Join one of the live discussions every Tuesday at 12pm EST/EDT and 7pm EST/EDT. Please keep in mind the time zone changes. We change with NYC time!
- Join through a browser like Tweetgrid or Tweetdeck. This video tutorial will help you join the conversation through Tweetdeck.
- Engage in conversations with a few by replying to their tweets. Use the @username to reply to one or many in the same tweet. If a person doesn’t respond then reply to another person or your moderator.
- Review the rest of the chat through the archives of the chats.
How Did #Edchat Get Started?
#Edchat began in August 2009 by Shelly Terrell (@shellterrell), Tom Whitby (@TomWhitby), and Steven Anderson (@web20classroom). Although relatively new, Edchat has become an incredible collaborative tool for educators worldwide to debate and evaluate solutions to various problems through Twitter. Edchat topics have trended on Twitter. The conversations have sparked several projects to improve schools, such as a free online conference, Nings, blog posts, video projects, and professional development workshops worldwide. Edchat won an Edublog Award for the Most Influential Tweet Discussion and has been featured by The New York Times, The Washing Post, USA Today, Converge Magazine, EdWeek, T/H/E JOURNAL, and the 140 Conferences. Watch this video about Edchat and be inspired!
Will you join the movement to improve education worldwide?