I have to give a shout out to a great friend, Amanda, from Learning to the Core. She planned a great weekend in Nashville for one of our friends getting married. Amanda is in Illinois, and I wish we lived closer, but we're able to catch up via our blog and after school phone conversations.
Amanda and I are on the couch on the right and left, respectively. You could say we like stripes! Our friend, Rachel, top middle in the black, is also an amazing teacher, and we're trying to talk her into guest blogging!
We were loving Elvis!
Luckily, it's summertime, so heading back to the reality of "home" was a bit easier than during the school year! It is a beautiful Tuesday evening here in Indy and I've been spending much of my day outside planting flowers, playing with the dogs, and oh yea, hiding upstairs for a bit when I was told a burglar was in the neighborhood (ahh!)!
Another piece of my summer is doing some reading from some great books and also tapping into the endless online resources through twitter. My new district is big on Twitter and encourages its use for professional growth. Now, I love bloggers who use Twitter to show their new posts or products, but I've tried to stick to the new learning part of Twitter.
One great part of Twitter are the twitter chats that you can be a part of based on your interests. They are usually once a week for an hour. The best part is that if you aren't quite ready to catch the twitter bug, then you can just be a passive reader and you don't have to "actively participate". The topics of these range from 1st grade teachers to 21st Century learning to technology usage and CCSS. @thomascmurray has put together a great list of these twitter chats so that you can find one that fits your niche and your schedule! It's really a terrific list, and a great way to get started!
In order to stay organized on Twitter, TweetCaster is the only way to do it...oh, and do it on your iPad! You can type in different hashtags and follow all of the tweets related to that hashtag...it's the best way to do the twitter chats too because it auto updates so you can read everyone's comments and responses. Also, if you have multiple twitter accounts, personal and professional, you can toggle back and forth pretty easily.
Alrighty, well I gotta run and watch The Voice finale, but feel free to follow me on Twitter (@MBRileyNCE). I typically post professional things, and I'm NO expert. I'm just beginning to dabble, but love the links to websites, articles, and great professional ideas. Happy tweeting!
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