"By George, I Think I've Got It!" (In my proper British voice)

Source: solbites.com

I am not competitive by nature, but when I have not  accomplished a goal I have set for myself, it brings out the competitive spirit in me. Knowing that I was unsuccessful at Twitter Chat, I jumped back onto the Twitter superhighway the following week. Refueled with additional information about Twitter chats, I signed-on to Twitter at the scheduled time. I searched for the Twitter chat I wanted to participate in using the chat's hashtag and braced myself for another "world-wind" race. As I slowly merged onto Twitter's super highway,  I discovered I was late getting to the starting line. The race had already commenced. Hence, I forgot to introduce myself  and hastily sped up in search for the first chat question. As I skillfully maneuvered through tweets, I saw a few that I wanted to respond to; especially the ones that referred to Twitter chats as fast and furious. Although those "pit stops" put me in the rear view mirror of many Tweeters, I still was able to respond to questions 2 and 4.  And I did this using my smart phone on the actual Twitter Website. Yea, me!  Needless to say, when the checkered flag was waved, I received a prize of worth-while information and three followers.




Successfully participating in a Twitter chat... 

Some of my Favorite Twitter Chats (All Times are Central.)
#edtechchat (Educational Technology)-Mondays, 7PM
#edchat (Education)-Tuesdays, 6 PM
#libchat (Librarians)-Wednesdays, 7 PM
#web20tools (Web 2.0 Tools)-Wednesdays, 5 PM
#21stechat (21st Century Education)-Sunday, 7PM

The Fast and the Furious

Source: zachsnow.org

One of my edtech goals for this year is to join a Twitter chat. Recently, I found a chat that I was interested in. I signed-on to Twitter at the scheduled time. Everything else is a blur. I do remember after the experience, I tweeted, "What the What?! #edtech, #socialmedia." Maneuvering on Twitter's super highway is not for the faint of heart. Tweets zoom by you from all sides. I was able to tweet my introductions, but when I jumped back into this NASCAR race, I was four minutes behind the rest of the participants. I later learned that using "Twitter's web interface" is not the most effective or efficient way to Twitter chat. Using a Twitter Aggregator such as HootSuite, TweetChat, or TweetGrid is more beneficial. The bottom line is that participating in a Twitter chat takes practice, but you learn a lot and connect with a lot of like-minded people. However, right now I am going to stay in my lane:  the slow one.

Below are some great articles and videos about participating in Twitter Chats.
http://www.coolcatteacher.com/videos/participate-twitter-chat-txeduchat/
http://janetfouts.com/how-to-participate-in-a-tweet-chat/
http://cypressnorth.com/social-media/how-to-participate-in-twitter-chats-stop-being-socially-awkward/
http://www.edudemic.com/get-better-at-twitter/
http://www.edudemic.com/5-ideas-help-go-twitter-lurker-active-user/