Reflection

I was very impressed with how many great resources educators were willing to share. In my future classroom, I can use twitter chats to find conversations and answers to questions and situations that I may need help with. As a current student, I can use twitter chats to start gathering resources that will be really helpful to my teaching, classroom, and future students. I chose the ISTE standard "1b Pursue professional interests by creating and actively participating in local and global learning networks." This standard is relevant because through twitter chats I am able to collaborate, participate, and learn from educators all over the world who have great resources to help me grow as an educator. 

Twitter chats are relevant to my future classroom because I can learn from current educators about different education discussion topics. I can read question answers and learn new perspectives from others, while also sharing my views. I can use this now and in the future to gain more knowledge and share knowledge with other educators. This is a great communication tool.

This was really good, there was a lot of good ideas people had. The most interesting thing I didn't think of was teachers from other countries. 

I had to sift through a lot of the education chats because they weren't taking place but I am really glad the chat I attended was happening. I attended the #DTK12chat design thinking chat and I loved it! The questions were focused on how we want our classroom structure to look and what we want our classroom environment to be like. It was great to see how the experienced teachers responded to the questions, I think I learned a lot about how I want to be portrayed as a teacher and how I can cultivate a classroom environment that I want. Thinking about these types of questions now as a student will help me when I become a teacher.  

I did find some of the questions challenging since I am not in the classroom yet so I didn't feel like I could answer them. However, I liked looking at everyone else's responses because it made me think more in-depth about the type of classroom culture I want. We talked about strategies in the classroom and many of us felt like getting to know the students before implementing strategies is critical for their learning. 

I was surprised by how much I loved participating in this Twitter Chat! It was awesome to get to connect with other people who are also passionate about teaching. I liked hearing the thoughts and perspectives of people in the classrooms in our state. Everyone was really nice and shared some great points. One person was even so kind to respond to one of my tweets and thanked me for choosing to become a teacher, and said that I was appreciated. It made my day! I actually think I will be joining into more Twitter Chats in the future, because it actually ended up being a lot of fun. I think it will be very useful in the future as well to connect with other educators from around the country as well as from around the world when I start teaching.

I initially planned to join the #1stchat (for first grades) however that was canceled so I joined the one for second grade. It went a lot faster than expected. It was a unique way for all members to interact with one another. We talked about what we should do if our students are not able to have 1:1 access to technology, our favorite apps, what technology skill we should teach primary students and what device we loved. I was able to answer these questions through the various assignment that we had in the EIPT course. 

I have to admit that I was nervous about this activity. I felt that I was not going to be able to answer the questions because I’m not a teacher so that means that I don’t have the knowledge to be part of those conversations, right? I was wrong! First of all, I want to say that the tweeter chat I joined (#2PencilChat) was so nice to me. They made me feel supported and validated. I felt a sense of community because these are educators are trying to help and motivate each other in this time of chaos by sharing their experiences, advice, and even motivational words. These are people who truly care about other teachers and most importantly their students. How amazing that we can come together from all parts of the country or world and have conversations that encourage our teaching journey. I definitely want to be part of more tweeter chats because I can see the benefits not just for us but for our future students.

I have never experienced a Twiter chat before in my life and this was such an amazing experience. As a student, I was able to see how things worked from a teacher's end. I was able to see frustrations, worries, and interactions between teachers supporting each other. Although I have not gotten the full-on experience as a teacher, this chat really allowed me to step into a teacher's shoes. I never realized that observations could often cause anxiety among teachers and with this, I was able to see what evals could often bring upon teachers. I also never really thought about how hectic and worrisome evals could be during this time, giving more insight about evals themselves. One thing I noticed is that teachers were very supportive of each other. These chats will allow me to have a support system not just only in my school community, but outside of it as well! 

I felt a little out of place in my twitter chat since I am not a teacher yet. However, it was interesting to read what people had to say about things they do in their classroom and how they communicate with their parents. Being in the twitter chat challenged me to think creatively and deeply. As a future teacher, these chats will allow me to learn how to better myself as a teacher and my classroom. It will also allow me to communicate with people who understand the things I go through in my classroom. 

Being in a twitter chat allowed me to learn from teachers who are experienced and care about creating safe spaces for their students and for each other to ask questions and learn from one another. I gained a lot of understanding about how to allow students to express themselves and be creative in my classroom, and I found a lot of new resources and websites that are educational for teachers and can help them implement a student-centered curriculum in their classrooms. I plan on allowing students to express themselves, their experiences, and opinions everyday in my classroom and educating myself in teaching a multicultural curriculum. 

I felt a little off in the chat because I am not a teacher yet. I felt a little inauthentic, but I ended up just referring to my classes/observations. I think that using chats like this are a great way to talk to others about issues we've run into the classroom or maybe just to get inspiration from them. I think it is a great way to get advise. I found myself reading a lot of other teacher's tweets and empathizing with them because they were having difficulty making connections with their students. One teacher even said that she didn't know what her students look like, and that absolutely broke my heart. 

For some reason, I was a bit nervous to participate in a Twitter chat; I thought I would look dumb or I wouldn't really be able to participate much because I am still a student without much actual teaching experience yet. However, actually doing the chat, I found that they are helpful for anyone interested in education. They're awesome for getting ideas from others and sharing yours, which is something I can take to my classroom or try to implement if I like the things someone else shared. Even as a student, I was able to provide insight to some teachers by talking about what teachers had done that helped me during the pandemic. I love the idea of such a huge platform to gather people and share thoughts so that we can all work to make our classrooms diverse, engaging, and the best they can possibly be for our students.