Using Twitter to Create a Professional Learning Network

I joined Twitter on January 21, 2020. You can find me @PheonixLongana

Twitter is a great place to be able to follow others,learn about resources, and build community. You can sit back and watch or join in on Twitter Chats - both can be valuable learning opportunities. 

I began my Twitter journey by searching for organizations I connect with professionally and creating a sort of Professional Learning Network (PLN). I followed some organizations for communication specialists and looked to who they were following. I noted who is more active on Twitter and who provides resources to other professionals and began following them too. One of the biggest advantages of creating a PLN for me are the cognitive benefits ( explain a bit more below). They are tremendous to increasing my creativity at work.

I also began following other areas of interest; inspirational accounts, brand accounts, informational accounts…My feed quickly became overwhelming. Time to problem solve this so I looked into using Lists.

One of my favorite tools that Twitter provides in keeping feeds organized is the Lists feature. You can create your own lists and have them public or private. You can subscribe to other public lists as well. By creating a list, you can group Twitter users together based on common ground and this helps me to avoid the overwhelming feeling I get when looking at my raw news feed on Twitter. I created a couple of private lists and subscribed to a couple of public ones.

Once the users are grouped and added to a list, I can view that list and concentrate on a single subject matter – or at the very least narrow it down to common ground. 

One of the most helpful lists that I am subscribed to is #schoolPR. The members of this list have been active in Twitter Chats using #k12prchat and many are influencers in my field of work. Below is a snapshot of some of the lists I am subscribed to.

Screenshot of my subscribed Twitter Lists
(https://twitter.com/PheonixLongana/lists/subscriptions)

I am able to use these lists to focus my feed and learn about new tools and resources that others are using. I get to have an inside view of what other professionals are involved with in their schools or how they are handling different types of communications. I can get ideas from what they are implementing and see if I could tweek the promotions to work for my communications. These are the cognitive benefits that help push my creativity to further limits.

Are you on Twitter? What are your favorite accounts to follow? Do you have a PLN? 

Let me know by commenting below.

Currently Reading: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

#2020readingchallenge