Last year I established a twitter account for my program, primarily for recruiting and marketing. Since then I have gradually been adding folks I follow as well as followers.
I found a hastag that appears to perfectly suit my needs as a higher education faculty member teaching at a distance (#hiedtech) and checked out a few postings I found there, but they do not seem to have a regularly scheduled chat.
sigh ..... I really hoped to find something less K-12 and more HIED. I am sure I am not the only HIED faculty member in search of a twitter group...but . . . .
Last night I tried following a twitter chat at #edtechchat. I even set up tweetdeck (http://tweetdeck.com) ahead of time to make sure I was ready for whatever was to happen next.
The chat started gracefully and slowly at 8 pm, and I even introduced myself.
Then the race began....
Once the first question appeared, bedlam ensued...at least this is how it appeared to me...and 1000+ tweets and 60 minutes later, it was over...
Q1: What do U envision 4 a Makerspace in ur library?
A what? I tried to follow tweets for context clues....and then...ANOTHER Q1 appears! ? Is seems that was a blended chat that night with two groups tweeting as one...
The new Q1 I at least understood: We are talking about giving our students a voice with tch. what does that mean to you? What does it mean to our students?
Still not understanding Makerspace, I opted to google it (http://makerspace.com/). Makerspaces are "community centers with tools, combining manufacturing equipment, community, and education to enable community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone." sounds really interesting, but I'm not sure at this point how that would work for me...but something to file away for the future.
By the time I return to the chat, they're discussing some other topic having nothing to do with Makerspace OR with voice.... then I see an A2... sheesh...I missed the Q and have to scroll up to find it.. And it went downhill from there.....
I followed, loosely, to see the process...Only one additional person self-identified as being in higher education, and the responses all concerned K-12 application of technology....Assignments and uses sounds interesting, but nothing that seemed applicable... nor did I feel that I could add anything as the users were K-12.
I will keep looking for a HIED-related chat...one that is slower...and see what I find....
#edtechchat is not one I would recommend for first-time Twitter chat participants. :) There are a couple of chats that may be of interest to you: #profchat (Tuesdays) and #teacheredchat (Mondays). These both include folks in higher ed, and I think you would find the topics to be more relevant. Also, beyond the weekly chats, these two hashtags are used by various folks to share ideas and resources. I enjoy lurking throughout the week by keeping those hashtags in my Tweetdeck. Also, you may want to check out #nced, which will be taking place bi-weekly on Wednesdays at 8pm. The #NCed planning team includes representatives from K-12 and higher education, and we work hard to keep the topics broad enough to accommodate a wide range of participants.
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