Mission #5: Twitter Chatter, Subject Matter

Hey all!  It’s Julie again!

I hope that you all are enjoying the challenges!  Remember, you can jump in anytime! This weeks mission involves Twitter so if you skipped “Mission #2, Twitter Me This“, you may want to revisit it for terrific tips on creating a Twitter account.

This week your mission is to attend a Twitter Chat!  Twitter Chats are one hour weekly chats held on Twitter. There are many different types of Twitter Chats, from general education chats to book chats. The twitter chats I love the most are the subject specific math chats just for math teachers! This week you are going to have the chance to specifically interact with teachers across the world that teach exactly the same subjects you teach! And there are math subject chats for everything from Middle School Math to Calculus and Statistics!

Browse the list below to see what day and time your chat is happening! Don’t be intimidated if you are a newcomer, you don’t even have to type anything to participate – you can just listen! But I promise that you will be compelled to jump in!  Read below for more helpful hints!

Twitter Math Subject Chat List

Click on the subject links for chat archives.

Subject	Twitter #	Day / Time	Subject this week	Facilitator
Middle School Math	#msmathchat	Monday 9PM EDT	Baiting the hook with chicken wings.*	@justinaion @shlagteach
Algebra 1	#alg1chat	Sunday 9 PM EDT	Group Work	@lmhenry9  @_MattOwen_  @aanthonya @kathrynfreed
Algebra 2	#alg2chat	Monday 9PM EDT	Functions	@druinok  @wmukluk  @lbburke
Geometry	#geomchat	Wednesday 9 PM EDT	Meaningful Math Tasks Across All Topics	@algebrainiac1  @barbarawmadden
PreCalculus	#Precalcchat	Thursday 8:30 PM EST	Unit Planning & Assessment*	@mrlenadj  @untilnextstop
Calculus	#calcchat	Friday 11AM as per IST – that is 12:30am EST and 1:30am EDT	TBD	@ajitmishra71
Statistics	#statschat	Thursday 9pm EDT	TBD	@jkindred13

** If none of the subject chats appeal to you, there are 200+ different education chats listed here!!  Thanks to @thomascmurray, @cevans5095  and @cybraryman1 for compiling this great list!

* Additional Information:  

• Middle School Math Chat
  • “Baiting the hook with chicken wings”  Dealing with the frustration of when an amazing lesson is met with blank stares.
• PreCalc Chat
  • How (and how often) do you plan for content vs. planning for process/Math practices?
  • Do you generally emphasize manual analysis or calculator analysis? Has this changed over time for you?
  • What does the flow of a unit typically look like for you?
  • What elements of assessments (participation, quizzes, projects, reading, writing, reflection, etc) factor into your actual grading?

United Kingdom Chats:

As the US Twitter Chat times can be tough for people around the world, there are two UK chats that may interest you!  Thanks so much to Jan Pringle and Nik Doran for reminding me about these chats!

• #UKEdChat – MATHS Subject Special on Thursday at 9PM, GMT
• #mathscpdchat – on Tuesday evenings at 7PM, GMT

How to Follow a Twitter Chat

To easily follow a Twitter Chat, type the hashtag and chat name into the search box. For instance, #msMathChat. Then, Twitter.com will bring up all of the tweets that include that hashtag!  It will look like this:

Twitter.com Hashtag Search

Helpful Hints:

• It’s a good idea to follow the facilitators (listed above in the chart) so you don’t miss important tweets and reminders when the chat begins.
• If you have never participated in a Twitter chat before you are in for a treat! To participate, you just need to include the hashtag (example: #msMathChat) in your 140 characters.
• The moderator will ask a question and then everyone can answer it and discuss. (The format for chats is usually a question, Q1 from moderator, then you will answer with an A1 at the start of your answer.)
• Don’t feel intimidated, because you don’t actually have to “chat” if you do not want to. You can simply log into twitter and watch the conversations. To do this, follow the hashtag. To follow a hashtag, simply perform a search on Twitter.
• If your Twitter account is private, you may want to unlock your tweets during the math chat. This will allow people who do not follow you to read your chats for the hour.

If you can’t come to a chat, but want to catch up on the conversation, many of the math chats are archived with Storify on the Math Chat Wiki.

More Helpful Twitter Hints:  TweetDeck!

Several of you have commented that Twitter can confusing and even overwhelming at first. Some of you said you aren’t really following the feed, you are just checking in on #MTBoS. But guess what? You can do it all at once! My all time BIG TIP for making Twitter truly awesome is TweetDeck by Twitter!

I love, love, love TweetDeck because I can see my entire Timeline (all of the tweets from all of people I follow – this is what you see on the Twitter.com page online), Interactions (people who are talking to me or including me in a conversation publicly), Messages (people who are talking privately just to me), and then any cool things I want to keep up with (like #msMathChat or #MTBoS). TweetDeck puts all of the most important stuff I want to read in COLUMNS (can you say Math Love)? It is ALL viewable in one place at the same time and looks like this…  If you perform a search, you can then create a whole new column from your hashtag search.  Notice the nifty little blue Add Column button at the bottom?  Yep, it’s true love.

Your mission for this week:

1. Attend any twitter chat that you would like! The easiest way to “attend” a chat is to search for and then follow the hashtag. (Example:  #msMathChat).
   • If you can’t attend a chat, read a storified subject chat on the MathChats Wiki Page.
2. Write a blog post reflecting on your Twitter Chat experience.
3. Tweet out your blog post. Include the hashtag for the chat you attended (#alg1chat) as well as the #MTBoS hashtag.
4. Include your blogpost in the comments here and then read and comment on the blog posts of the three commenters directly above you. Be sure that you are commenting on their blog and not here. 🙂

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