Thursday, February 25, 2010

I Joined Twitter 365 Days Ago




A few days ago I was trying to remember exactly when I joined Twitter and launched @plnaugle into the Twittersphere. So I typed "when did I join Twitter" into the Google search bar and was taken here. After typing in my Twitter username, I discovered my first anniversary would occur February 25 - today. I knew I would have to celebrate my anniversary by posting a reflection to my blog.

A year ago I set up my account and spent time trying to figure out if this social network was for me. I made the typical newbie mistakes like following celebrities and people I didn't have much in common with. I posted a couple of questions when I had only a handful of followers and wondered why no one responded to my queries. I listened to the naysayers who said, "Who cares what someone ate for breakfast?" Like a lot of first-time users I didn't understand the Twitter stream or how to find the right people to follow. So I started a Google Reader alert for "Twitter" and soon had tons for material to read. Slowly but surely it started to make sense.

I can honestly say I have learned more from being on Twitter this past year than I had learned in the previous five years about Web 2.0 tools, technology integration, innovative teaching, project-based learning, elearning and many more educational topics. I have been an educator for thirty-four years and know that Twitter is the best tool I have in the toolbox.

Here are my stats as my first year comes to a end - I am following 657 people; 1,412 people are following me; I have been listed 68 times; I have tweeted an update 2,968 times. And one more interesting fact that was shared with me on Twitter tonight - Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) also joined Twitter on February 25, 2009.