Tonight marked the 1st #MNLEAD twitter chat. Michelle Ament (@mlament)and Lisa Sjogren (@lisasjogren) did a fantastic job creating the discussion agenda and moderating the event. Having the agenda ahead of time really helped me keep track of the answers to the questions and flow of the conversation. I also appreciated learning about tweetchat – a tool specifically for twitter chats. For those of you who have not participated in a chat before, essentially a moderator will ask a question and then you respond. Typically you get 10 minutes to have a rapid conversation (I mean crazy-fast high-adrenaline discussions) around the ideas presented, before moving on to the next question.
Below is a sample:
My response
While what I tweeted was nothing earth shattering, it was a my statement, my thoughts and something that I could have a side twitter conversation about. This is what like about twitter chats. A single tweet leads may lead to a favorite or retweet (RT) which can lead to a reply. The reply leads a formal twitter conversation that may include actual samples and ideas that are being currently implemented in districts. That 140 character conversation leads to follow up email or in this case an invite to a Google community #MNTransformEDU. Follow up emails and/orconnections in Google communities can lead to longer more in depth conversations. If online discussion is not enough it may be necessary for a phone call and my favorite – Google hangout. I can not begin to tell you how many times a spark on Twitter has lead to some pretty significant change in my district as well as my own professional growth. Because of that 140 character discussion cycle, I have now have a deeper connections to like-minded colleagues around the state (or world) who support me, but more importantly challenge me in my thinking.
Don’t get me wrong. I still learned quite a bit from our chat. I like that we had 40-50 ed leaders in MN come together to talk about leadership and what we like, what we do, and how we will follow up with what we learned. We also have to tweet our actionable items throughout the rest of the week – (this was a nice touch!) If you are wondering what the lollipops are about – please watch the video in the agenda.
One pondering question I have. What if we had MORE edu leaders participate and engage in Twitter Chats. What kind of movement would that create in MN schools? Join us Sundays at 7pm cst!