Are Twitter Chats Worth Your Time?

Have you ever heard the expression "the smartest person in the room is the room?" It's an effective reminder that collective wisdom is often better than trying to figure out things for yourself. What if your room was full of thousands of educators from all parts of the country who have the same interests, questions, and struggles that you do?

Welcome to the world to Twitter chats. For a teacher looking to expand their professional network beyond the teachers in their buildings, a Twitter chat may be the perfect professional development opportunity. A Twitter chat uses a hashtag to conduct a planned, public Twitter conversation on a specific topic. Twitter chats are usually held for a finite length of time on a regular basis. These conversations are free to participate in and offer unrivaled access to other educators around the country. Twitter chats can be on general or specific topics.

There are hundreds of education-related Twitter chats for your to participation. Each Twitter chat has its own unique attributes related to number of participants, experience of moderators, specificity of topic, etc., so be patient when trying to find ones that fit you. Below, I have listed some Twitter chats that are a good place to start. However, if you have a specific topic that is of interest to you, try simply typing your topic into the search bar and see what appears!

Here are a few popular education-related Twitter chats to get you started (from ISTE.org) :

#edchat (Thursdays, 6 p.m.)
One of the first education chats, this popular chat has nine moderators and covers a broad range of topics.

#engchat (Monday, 6 p.m.)
Where English teachers share ideas, resources and inspiration.

#nt2t (Saturdays, 8 a.m.)
For educators who are new to Twitter.

#kinderchat (Mondays, 8 p.m.)

For anyone interested in kindergarten and early-childhood education.

#mschat (Thursdays at 7 p.m.) 

For middle school teachers.

#AppleEDUchat (Tuesdays, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.)

For all educators, led by Apple Distinguished Educators.

#EdTechChat (Mondays, 7 p.m.) 

Focused on topics related to edtech.

#iteachphysics (Saturdays, 8 a.m.) 

Bi-weekly chat for physics teachers.

#pblchat (Tuesdays, 8 p.m.) 

For project-based learning fans.

#Read4fun (Every other Sunday, 6 p.m.) 

Connects passionate educators with books and with each other.