I am taking a class called Tech 4 Teachers that meets once a week. I wanted to take it because I want to better use the 1:1 iPads at our school and I can use the credits for lanes. Well, one of the days was cancelled due to that April blizzard, so one of the options to make it up was to participate in a PLN hashtag on Twitter and reflect on how it went, what we got out of it, etc. So tonight, I participated in the #DitchBook PLN, which is to discuss ways to ditch the textbook, get creative, and integrate technology.

Overall I wasn’t impressed by the format. Tweets are too short to get very deep or descriptive, so instead, it felt like more platitudes and vague ideas. I felt like I couldn’t fully communicate ideas either, so I felt like I was being unclear. The speed of the chat was not terrible, but it was tough to keep the different individuals straight. The answers seemed to blend together.

However, I did get a couple good responses with ideas for apps on the iPad to try, specifically Flipgrid and Seesaw. I’ll be checking them out tomorrow. They also suggested Pear Deck, which I have tried. I also gained a few followers after the chat, which is good because popularity!

On the whole, I don’t know if I would participate in another EduChat or hashtag PLN. I prefer a more detailed conversation, although I could see it being a good way to share basic resources or ideas to further research.

Look at me, I got my writing AND my homework done in the same time!