Many of my fellow cohort members have generously posted helpful hints:
- Carrie Cann via Google + “The Complete Guide to twitter Hashtags For Education”
- Carol Bob via Google + “Embracing Connected/Networked Learning Essential Resources for Tech-Savvy Educators “
- Katia Hildebrandt (TA for Alec Couros in OLTD 505) via Google + “Twitter EDU”
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“I've been trying to figure why I don't care about Twitter ... why I created a profile, followed a bunch of people and "things" and then barely engaged with it ... why I view it as one of many available time sinkholes (of which I need zero more in my life) ... why it's fine for me that I heard about Obama's tweet to Letterman on CBC radio rather than on Twitter.”
My thoughts mirrored his musings. I too feel that I am in a conundrum with twitter. We have definitely not become the friends I had envisioned us to be . However, with that being said, I have many other social media platforms that I visit frequently. I was baffled why twitter was causing me such a problem. I don’t know if it is because I haven’t had my “ah ha” moment yet, or if I really just don’t know how to use it to its full potential yet. I have posted in Google +, watched videos and read articles, and yet I am still in the same spot- but possibly a bit more knowledgeable about #hastags!
Coming into this course new to twitter, only having posted once in 502, I do feel as though I am at a slight disadvantage to those who have been tweeting for years- and yes, I do believe that twitter, like many social media sites is a “time whore” (quoted from Steve Dotto in his screencasting webinar), and at this point in my life, prioritizing my time is the only way I make it from one day the next.
However, I did feel this same way with many of the other sites I now frequent often- the difference I think is that with those sites, I was able to learn them on my own time, and got a good understanding of why I felt them to be useful.
It is hard to prioritize your time to something that you have been “fighting” with for so long, when you know you have so many other pressing things to be part of. I feel that reading the blogs my cohort have written much more useful than spending hours searching for something to retweet at this point. But since this is a learning journey, I am going to try and motivate myself for the next couple of weeks to try and find a few #hastags that I feel will be relevant to my practice and follow them- possibly my “ah ha” moment will happen and I will find my “buried gem” as George Knight so gracefully wrote.