Using Twitter to Transform

So my sortie into the world of Twitter (@jez_scott) is now into its 4^th day and my experience has been wholly satisfying and refreshingly inspiring. Having avoided Twitter for so long as a result of my natural caution and all-too frequent experience of its underbelly, I want to kick myself for not having made the jump sooner.

I opened my Twitter account of 2 January and started to find people of interest who I might want to follow. This started with celebrity wits such as Stephen Fry (obviously) and David Mitchell and then moved to authors and journalists who I have come across in my research on social media and futures thinking such as Keri Facer and Evgeny Morozov. Very quickly I started to find educators who were clearly well-established Twitter users such as Simon Warburton, Tom Sherrington and David Didau and a community of positive, forward-thinking school leaders began to emerge. It didn’t take long before people started to interact with me in relation to my posts and this encouraged me comment on and retweet others’ posts. I had viewed Twitter from afar as a bragging tool whose main purpose was self-promotion, and this aspect clearly exists, but what I also found were professionals who were using Twitter as a genuine tool of collaboration and communication. All teachers benefit from talking about their practice and uncovering new ideas about inspiring young people – this works within schools and it clearly works very well on Twitter. The opportunities to share ideas in school is dependent on the culture of the school and the time that is available for such activities – on Twitter there is a vibrant community of interested and interesting teachers which can be dipped into when it is convenient – anytime, anywhere learning should be for teachers as well as students. The potential that Twitter has for aiding effective professional development is very exciting and one which I will promote within my own school and when I talk at the BETT Conference on 1 February.

Reservations about using Twitter persist but they are perhaps different from my earlier assumptions. I wasn’t quite prepared for the emotional consequence of writing my first tweets and exposing my blogs to a wider audience. Is it normal to become rather obsessed with responses and the number of followers I’ve got? I was hoping to avoid this kind of arrogant reaction but I guess it is part and parcel of the experience and is likely to abate with time (and a more complimentary number of followers!). The obsessive nature of Twitter can therefore start to eat into time; the more prolific bloggers and tweeters must be almost permanently attached.

Can Twitter transform? I have suggested before that schools and teachers need to transform the way they use modern technologies and specifically social media. Twitter is the most frequently used social media service by young people – not always in the positive ways which I have outlined above. Young people need to be educated in the appropriate and effective use of social media and teachers are best placed to do this. To educate one needs to have experienced and therefore being involved in Twitter has obvious advantages. But most importantly, Twitter opens up communities of support and expertise that would benefit the continuous professional development of all teachers. It encourages people to reflect on their practice and to keep up-to-date with new developments.

So I will continue to tweet – not with my friends and family, I still think it’s best to talk to them – but with those who wish to improve education and give meaningful opportunities for young people to learn about this increasingly vital area of modern life. I may be late for the party but I bring Tequila.