Twitter and my PLN

I joined Twitter about one year ago and what a year it has been. I never dreamed how beneficial this tool could be for me. It started out slow. I was just following about 10 people for a long time. I now follow 77 people and have 17 people follow me. I don't tweet much, but I sure benefit from the people I follow!
Most of the 77 people I follow are fellow teachers like me who have a great interest in integrating technology in their classrooms. These people are my PLN (Personal Learning Network) and boy do they live up to their acronym! I feel like I go through a professional development session on a daily basis. So many ideas, websites, news links, and blog links are shared by these people. When I started using Twitter, I had to remember to go to the website and sign in every day. As a busy teacher and taking classes, I wasn't making the most of my Twitter experience. Many nights, I was too busy to check my Twitter feed. Then I download Twitterrific. This feed reader has changed my life! As I work on my laptop, this application runs in the background and every few minutes, it automatically pops up with the new tweets in my feed. This has simplified my life. As I work, I can learn. During the past year, I have been finding myself quoting my Twitter buddies to my colleagues at school. I have found some terrific ideas and websites through my Twitter buddies. I also share these with the teachers that I work with. They wonder how I have time to scour the internet for all these terrific resources, but I always give credit to my PLN.
I built my PLN slowly over time following more and more people (and an occasional organization...I would highly recommend following one of the MODOT highways, as I follow MODOT I-44 and I get updates on Twitter when there are traffic issues on that highway). Some people tweet a lot...(@ktenkely, @amandadykes, @budtheteacher) and some just occasionally. The best thing that I have become involved in with Twitter in this past year is the weekly #edchat that I have been following. This is a weekly synchronous discussion on a topic that is chosen by a survey of Twitter followers of creator @tomwhitby. This discussion takes place every Tuesday and when it is going on, the tweets flow fast and furious. The comments are thought-provoking. It is like going to a weekly conference...and it's all free!
If you are new to Twitter, I would recommend doing the following to get yourself started:

1. Make sure you include that you are a teacher and things that you are interested in Bio on your profile. This will help others find and follow you.
2. Start following just a few people. How do you find them? Start with the people whose blogs you read. Most of them also Twitter.
3. Pay attention to the people who are being retweeted by the people you follow. If you like what they are tweeting, then start following them also!
4. Use hashtags (#) to tag your tweets so that your tweets are included in a search of tweets on a particular topic. Hashtags can also be used by you to find what people are saying on a particular topic in a search.
5. Follow a couple of non-education people (entertainer, business, sports figure, etc.) just to provide you with a little R&R.
6. Just relax and have fun with it!

If you like what you've read here, feel free to follow me on Twitter. I am @jhox1.