Preamble

My Twitter journey began in 2011 when I attended a conference in Lissabon, Edmedia 2011. This conference has changed my behaviour on social media. I attended a lot of workshops on different topics, ranging from connectivism to the use of social media in education. In fact, I vividly remember a session on the use of Twitter. I still have some blogposts on that period. Out of interest, I refer to them here and here. Since then I’ve been using Twitter more extensively and have experienced the potential and the inspiring character of the social medium for the professional development of teachers. Illustrative of the power of the medium is the origin of an educational learning festival in Flanders (edushock). This festival was founded through people on Twitter. Talking about the power of connections.

“And we can build things together, things that can have a global impact in ways that were impossible a few years ago.” (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011 p.3)

During my career as a teacher trainer and during this research I was confronted with the complexities of teacher professional development. It has been an interesting journey to unravel the hypohesis that Twitter can add value to teachers’ professional practice. I randomly took this tweet to illustrate my point that educators have the tendency to be very enthusiastic about Twitter, and so am I.


It is easy, though, to share this in 140 characters but researching the underlying powers that drive this “Twitter-flow” was harder. As you can see in one of my my videologs:


> Suggested: Part one Introduction: The context & the problem.