All tweets on deck

Well what about TweetDeck? How did it go?

Was it really useful? How do you know?

TweetDeck is super, it helps me a lot,

I love the columns and never get caught.

When I began this inquiry project, I was already sold on the idea of Twitter. I was using it daily, creating a PLN of educators and finding lots of great information, ideas and food for thought. However, I was finding managing the information flow into my Twitter account overwhelming and did not think I was managing it well. Enter TweetDeck - a way to organize the flow of information and keep it manageable.

A PLN or personal learning network, is like differentiated learning. In Why Teachers Should Try Twitter, William Ferriter describes his path to individualized learning (as an educator) through Twitter. 

For educators who use this tool to build a network of people whose Twitter messages connect to their work, Twitter becomes a constant source of new ideas to explore. (Ferriter, 2010).

 In Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter, Laura Knight's reasons are all related to professional growth as a teacher:

• together we're better
• global or local: you choose
• self-awareness and reflective practice
• ideas workshop and sounding board
• newsroom and innovative showcase
• professional development and critical friends
• quality-assured searching
• communicate, communicate, communicate
• getting with the times has never been so easy

Will Richardson (2010) describes Twitter as a "network at my fingertips" for educators (p.86).

So, yes, yes, yes, I am sold on the idea of using Twitter for creating and keeping track of my PLN! I am all over differentiated learning for teachers. I am simply looking for a better way to keep track of it all!

Enter TweetDeck - a platform that allows me to manage the Twitter feeds I follow into columns. I can have columns for various hashtags that I wish to keep track of and can even add my Facebook account into it. Because I am using the Google Chrome add-on of TweetDeck, it shows up as a tab in my web browser which is very convenient. TweetDeck simply enhances my ability to use Twitter and allows me to better take advantage of it.



Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.