In a previous life that is closely connected to this current one, I was an AP Psychology teacher. Just bringing this fact up makes me want to preach the value that psychology has to anyone and everyone, but I'll set that one diatribe aside for now.
What I want to ponder now is the way that information is shared and leads to the overall edification of individuals as they participate in twitter chats. Tonight, as a part of my summer of professional learning, I decided to participate in a twitter chat that I had never been a part of before. I happened to see a Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented post on twitter for a chat they were leading tonight titled "Where's the 'Off' Button? Helping Parents of Young Gifted Children". You can see the chat here on storify.
As I was reflecting on the value that the chat had for me as an educator and as the mom of a preschool aged gifted child, I thought about how learning takes place and how twitter chats (and twitter itself) function much like the transmission of an impulse from one nerve to another. I was reminded in particular of what a synapse is: Merriam Webster defines a synapse quite simply as, "the place where a signal passes from one nerve cell to another". A twitter chat is much like that. If you consider our ideas as an impulse that we share across a space (twitter) then we are both literally and figuratively growing neural connections. If that isn't valuable professional learning, I'm not sure what is.
Here is a picture from my AP Psychology days from my students representing neurons with household objects. Original blog post here.
What I want to ponder now is the way that information is shared and leads to the overall edification of individuals as they participate in twitter chats. Tonight, as a part of my summer of professional learning, I decided to participate in a twitter chat that I had never been a part of before. I happened to see a Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented post on twitter for a chat they were leading tonight titled "Where's the 'Off' Button? Helping Parents of Young Gifted Children". You can see the chat here on storify.
As I was reflecting on the value that the chat had for me as an educator and as the mom of a preschool aged gifted child, I thought about how learning takes place and how twitter chats (and twitter itself) function much like the transmission of an impulse from one nerve to another. I was reminded in particular of what a synapse is: Merriam Webster defines a synapse quite simply as, "the place where a signal passes from one nerve cell to another". A twitter chat is much like that. If you consider our ideas as an impulse that we share across a space (twitter) then we are both literally and figuratively growing neural connections. If that isn't valuable professional learning, I'm not sure what is.
Here is a picture from my AP Psychology days from my students representing neurons with household objects. Original blog post here.
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