The Unintended Consequences of a #csk8 Twitter Chat

Everything started so well.

To expand my Professional Learning Newtork (PLN) as a 1st to 8th grade coding instructor, I found the perfect Twitter chat:

Everybody proved friendly, the content was helpful, and the chat may result in a potential classroom collaboration!

But when the chat was over, something felt wrong.

A lack of enthusiasm.

A sense of failure.

A familiar tightness in my chest.

Oh, I know.

I was overwhelmed. And I knew exactly why. 🤦

In just a few days, I had amassed a staggering volume of information from the #csk8 Twitter chat and from a concurrent slow #cep810 Twitter chat about teaching methods, goals, projects, and who to follow:

I felt pressure to use everything I found, which is what I usually did in my old Google-and-me-PLN after finding just a few answers to focused queries. Unknowingly, I associated using new ideas with success. But, there was no possible way to use the massive number of ideas, so logically, that made me a massive failure.

Clearly, I needed to stop using Twitter and engage in some cognitive therapy and reflection:

• Becoming a better teacher is a lifelong process. I need to be patient with myself no matter how much urgency I feel.
• Twitter information is different and less important than Google’s, because it often doesn’t meet any specific needs. Twitter information just comes. And comes. And comes. Without a practiced ruthless curation, or a predetermined goal, that information can become a huge distraction.
• Moreover, perhaps a PLN is used less for obtaining information but more for developing lasting contacts and relationships, in which case information becomes more of an introductory currency, a way to signal to other people that your interests might align with theirs.

Okay! I feel better now.

Sometimes applying old habits to unfamiliar technology results in unintended consequences!

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