“What’s a Twitter chat?” has been the question I’ve answered the most often in the last two weeks. My friend who is a social media manager had never heard of them. Twitter chats are a scheduled conversation centered around a specific hashtag, and the questions are usually given by one user. I have participated in several over the years, including running one back in 2016! This week I participated in the #musedchat (focused on music education) and #edtechchat (focused on educational technology). Here’s a sample from the #musedchat:
For #musedchat it was interesting to see how others teach the national anthem and what they expect of their students. One topic discussed was how to handle students who cannot perform the national anthem for religious reasons. You can read our conversation below (click to expand) or on Twitter (2019).
We had orchestra, band, and general music teachers coming together to share ideas. This is an opportunity I do not have locally or in-person. I plan on at least reading through the #musedchat hashtag each Monday now, even if I’m not home to participate by 5 p.m. PST.
In comparison, the #edtechchat was much larger and centered around conferences. This topic was less interesting to me but I did appreciate that they managed to do 12 questions in an hour compared to the three that #musedchat did. I may participate in #edtechchat again, but it heavily depends on the topic.
If you’re an educator, I recommend finding a Twitter chat that works for you and trying it out! There’s a calendar of all education related chats that can be adjusted to any American timezone that I found very helpful (Blumengarten, Evans, Hamilton, Murray, & Rochelle, n.d.).
References:
Blumengarten, J., Evans, C., Hamilton, C., Murray, T., & Rochelle, J. (n.d.). Education Chats [calendar]. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/twittereducationchats/education-chat-calendar
Gruber, L. [GrubersOrch]. (2019, February 4). Question for #musedchat since you’re discussing it tonight… what do you do for Ss who can’t learn the SSB bc of their religious beliefs? What’s your justification for continuing to teach it? [Tweet]. https://twitter.com/GrubersOrch/status/1092602233273966593
