Saturday, January 08, 2011

Guido Europeaantje on Twitter and professional development.

Guido's students3 @europeaantjeImage by eltpics via Flickr
Guido is an EFL teacher in Seville, Spain. He coordinates the teens’ department of the school where he works and conducts teacher-training workshops. After more than 10 years of experience his professional development has started taking giant steps forward again thanks to the power of Twitter.
He gave an over-view of Twitter in his workshop called "Twitter: Turn 140 Characters into a Virtual Staffroom." He compares Twitter (for teachers) as a virtual staffroom where teachers can get together, share resources and ideas. 
I love that he gets that Twitter is about networks. There are too many users out there who think that it is a "microblog" or a one-way push of information. He emphasized, as we do here, the importance of following and following someone back - i.e network building. 
Guido writes that "Many educators worldwide connect on Twitter. This workshop is meant for teachers who are unfamiliar with Twitter or who aren´t very active on it (yet). The short messaging system Twitter can be turned into a huge virtual staffroom where teachers from around the world meet, communicate, support each other and share teaching tips, resources, weblinks and opinions. Come and discover some tools and tricks to help you keep up with “what´s happening” on Twitter."
Guido promotes Twitter as a personal learning network. "It is a communication tool. You have to interact with people." It is a medium for sharing. 

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