EDTECH 543: Twitter for Professional Development

This week I created my first TweetDeck and it only took me using to online tutorials to figure it out.  Looking at the options to chose from I chose the following hashtags to follow on my TweetDeck:

#EdTechSN
#socialstudies
#history
#lessonplans
#teachers
#bullying
#edtools

After scrolling through the TweetDeck and looking at the new resources I have on hand I learned quite a bit.  As a history teacher I am drawn to historical events, but especially those of injustice.  My hope is not only to help my students understand the historical timeline and its impact, but to help them grow in compassion and sympathize with the tragedies in history.  With all the media available to students it seems that they are becoming desensitized too soon.  On #lessonplans one of the first links that popped up was for the Equal Justice Initiative.  I clicked on the website link and it connected me to a fantastic source about Lynching in America.  It is mature content and as a teacher it there is always a need to filter depending on your audience.  I believe its important to see the mistakes of history and educate students on how to bring about positive change.  Without this hashtag I might not have found this resource.
Lynching in America - https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/

Another resource I found in the #edtools was from curriculum.org.  There was a posted link for creating animated videos for teaching.  The link sent me to educatorstechnology.com's article on Animaker.  It gives a video explanation on how to use it and I thought it was a good resource to keep in mind.  I have used multiple animation creators during my EdTech courses, but I haven't used this one yet.  It could be a great resource in my middle school classroom for my students to create presentations in a creative way.
Link to Source - http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2017/06/here-is-awesome-tool-for-creating.html

On the #socialstudies feed there were great positive tweets about what is happening in social studies classrooms around the world.  There was an article that came up that explained what every social studies teacher believes - history matters!  Using the TweetDeck I am able to find educational articles about my content.  This particular article came from Education World and was written by a professor who discussed the importance of social studies and how to engage students in the content.
Education World - http://www.educationworld.com/blog/positioning-social-studies-center#.WUFKwUUEFeM.twitter

As I mentioned before I was not one who saw much value in Twitter.  I always thought it was a way to following sports heroes and celebrities, but now after filtering through the information I was interested in and creating a TweetDeck I have found that the resources are endless.  I am interested in looking at the other hashtags I started to follow, including #bullying.  It seems like at any level there are forms of bullying at school and as a middle school teacher hopefully I will find resources to help the students at my school.  It is a valuable professional development tool that is available whenever a teacher decides to search.