Random Thoughts

Virtual Teacher's Lounge

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So people often ask me what is Twitter and why do you twit?

Well I think theartguy found it yesterday:

Time for bed. I’ll “see” you in the morning, fellow lurkers in this virtual teacher’s lounge!

Twitter.comWhen I read this twit, it hit me. This is what twitter has become for many…for us I think. A virtual teacher’s lounge were topics/conversations can change with the coming and going of people. You offer help, ask for help, give suggestions, links, or just talk about your boy’s baseball game last night, what you are planning for dinner, or what’s happening in your life.

It is along the lines of the same conversations you would hear in a teacher’s lounge. The only difference you’re always there and you share conversations with your “friends”.

I do have to admit I’m enjoying this virtual lounge better than the real lounge when I taught 4th grade back in the States. Of course being a male teacher I ate my lunch with my team who were all women, and let’s just say I learned more about being pregnant then I ever wanted to know during those 3 years. My education while teaching came in the teacher’s lounge for sure. 🙂

and it still does! Today I’ve learned the following:

MBAmom So eBay buys StumbleUpon – http://tinyurl.com/2b796v – I would’ve suspected Google instead of eBay – wonder what’s next?

dkuropatwa From anywhere in the world send snailmail anywhere in Canada, free! http://easypost.ca Just got self sent test mail today.

crafty184 Amazing new tool, browser-based cross platform screen cast recording site. Read my blog at http://tinyurl.com/27jsxa

Those are just three of the things I’ve learned today because of Twitter.

So what is Twitter? It’s a network of thoughts, some you might be interested in some not. Some make you laugh and others make you wonder why you keep twitting.

Twitter is also making it easier to be connected. They now have a netvibes module that allows you to twit from your netvibes page. Facebook also has a twitter app so you can port your twitter to facebook. Slowly but surely all these networks are being tied together.

The virtual Teacher’s Lounge…that’s a pretty good description!

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I started blogging in 2005 and found it such a powerful way to reflect and share my thinking about technology, this generation, and how we prepare students for their future not our past.

4 Comments

  1. Here’s what’s even funnier about this analogy and how right-on it is.

    When I learned about that cool tool, the screencast-o-matic one, I couldn’t wait to RUN to twitter/jaiku and post it. I knew the folks there would gobble it up.

    Had I “ran” to the teachers’ lounge in my school, or any school in my area I’d venture to say, I would have to pray to be lucky enough encounter even one more person who would have wanted to share in my geekiness.

    Twitter is a virtual teacher lounge for those of us with common interests. It can’t be called simply another teacher’s lounge, because the conversations in the teachers lounges around here are a god bit different. Here it’s about dieting, politics, and other useful but relative discussion. Twitter is a whole different type of faculty lounge.

  2. That’s it! I knew there was a description of the connections we make and maintain on Twitku. Thank you!
    We are programmed to be in relationship – nothing saying it cannot be virtual relationship where we enter the global conversation. Sometimes that conversation is about our daughters and sometimes about the Orioles or Eagles. We always there for each other – I know I have found tech help on Twitku!
    Thank you fellow Twits!

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