Over the past year, Twitter has become an essential part with how I have grown as an educator. I walked into a conference a year ago ready to make connections with people in my area, but left with access to a worldwide professional learning community. A year ago, I would’ve told you that Twitter was a place for young people to speak their mind, whatever that may be. While that may be true, I have come to know Twitter as a place where amazing people are connecting with other amazing people to learn and grow in many different fields.
 
I started small by following people who I met at the conference or my colleagues and began to build my social network from there. I would find educators or people that I thought were inspiring or that showed an interest in the things I was passionate about. I think the first step in successfully using Twitter to connect professionally was to find people who you look up to, inspire you or show an expertise or interest in the field you are studying.
 
The next thing that I did to utilize every opportunity on Twitter was to jump into group chats. Each week educators from all over the world host chats that happen in real time. Not only were these chats a great way to grow my network, they were also great at allowing me to give my advice and opinion, as well as learn from others advice and opinions. This was crucial in forming Twitter relationships with people I would’ve never met in real life. I was able to have a conversation with, receive advice and feedback from authors I had looked up to but had not met in person. It was such a cool feeling connecting with someone that you would typically only see on stage at conferences. It is also very neat to find people who share your same passions. Often times we feel that we don’t have anyone who feels the same way we do, understands our reasoning or is seeing the same vision, and connecting with people on Twitter is a great way to find someone who shares those same things.
 
The last thing that I think Twitter helped me do was to reflect on what practices were worth sharing with others and what practices were dull, old or really not helpful. In weeding through these things, I was able to take out some of the things that were irrelevant in my classroom with my students. In place of those things, I was able to incorporate new ideas I had learned and try out different things that I hadn’t known about before.
 
Twitter really helped me to revamp my teaching practices and to connect with educators all over the world who are inspiring in their own ways. I think that Twitter is a great tool for professionals to use to connect, as well as people who are in graduate school and are getting ready to enter the professional world of their choosing. It is never too early to start building your professional learning community. I believe, for me, that my PLC on Twitter is the best free professional development around.

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India Morris
India is Masters student in the Department of Educational Psychology's Creativity and Cognition Online Program.