Twitter...... What's My Thoughts?

Hello readers, welcome back to another blog post!

Twitter was created in 2006, I eventually joined along and originally created an account in 2010. At this time I was introduced to what a "#Hashtag" was, and what "@ing" someone meant. This was a weird time for the online community as these were new concepts implemented by Twitter to create a platform that was designed to foster connectivity and create a community within the online application. I have always enjoyed Twitter but felt I never used the application to its full potential as I would use it to follow my friends, sport and news accounts to keep up to date with current times. I would find myself scrolling through meaningless jokes and videos to entertain myself during my procrastination of school. It wasn't until my time in my Education program where I have discovered the usefulness of this application to connect with other like-minded individuals and gather ideas surrounding the subject of education. Unfortanutyl I never fully committed to being active to connect.

Screenshot of a Twitter feed in 2010

This semester, in my final semester before graduation I was tasked with creating a professionally viewed Twitter account for my class "Internet For Educators". I viewed this as a perfect opportunity to finally commit and engage in actively using twitter as a tool to enhance my knowledge as an educator. At the start of this semester in January I created a new educator Twitter account @MrKeilback around the same time I created this blog. If you have not yet followed or checked out my profile on Twitter I highly recommend you do. In a short period of use, I have had a great experience thus far. At first, I searched up and followed about 100 different profiles that promote Physical Education or education in general. This was to surround my feed with education like-minded individuals. From here I was able to build somewhat of a following at 65 followers at this time of the blog, but creating this profile was not to gain followers rather grow a network of educational resources and ideas on an application that I can look at for inspiration. Somewhere I can collaborate or comment on an idea, ask questions, and discuss my passion for Physical Education. The largest hurdle throughout the short period being back on Twitter in a professional lens is just creating engagement and starting up that initial network of individuals. As I Tweet and produce content for my followers I have noticed the lack of engagements with my tweets with the helpful tool of "Tweet Analytics" each tweet has to show data of how well your content is being viewed.

Newly Created Educational Twitter Profile January 2020

In the image below, you can see 205 people viewed my tweet only 3 engaged with it broken down into 1 like 1 URL link click to my blog post I was tweeting about and 1 profile view. Me personally I don't care about the likes or profile clicks but the stat that bothers me is the URL link engagements as I am tweeting out for the sole purpose of individuals to check out my blog post for idea or discussion about online classrooms and the logistics of implementing online education. If you're interested in checking out that post follow the link Online Classrooms. I think the best way to combat this issue for engagement is to become more active myself and over time my following and content will become more active. 

Tweet Data are shown from one of my profile Tweets

 
Overall, my experience so far on Twitter has been great! I plan on sticking with Twitter in the future as I personally feel it is the best way for me to network and share ideas surrounding education with other like-minded people. The more and more I personally develop myself as a professional, meeting new individuals through professional development or in my future workspace I think my network will grow with time. I plan to continue creating content to promote my passion for ideas surrounding education.  

Thanks again for your time, I hope you were able to take something away from my views on Twitter. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback feel free to start the discussion in the comments.

- BK
@MrKeilback

Twitter Application Link: https://twitter.com
Image source: https://www.tamurajones.net/TwitterRedesign.xhtml