Twitter Challenge Summary

When I started this challenge I didn't know what to expect. As the days went on, I was surprised by the participation and the amount of work I had to put in to keep it going. I thought going into this that if I was able to get just 1 more educator to start on Twitter and see the benefits, then it would be a success. Unfortunately, it's hard for me to see past what I missed, so all that stood out to me for a while was the amount of people that I couldn't convince to give it a try. Now that I have had time to think about it, I am completely happy with the results.

There were 50 people (40 teachers and 10 administrators) that received e-mails everyday with the challenges. A total of 25 different people participated in some aspect with 10 completing pretty much every challenge. There were people who created their first social media account just to do this and some that are more proficient with Twitter than I am (which isn't saying much) who joined in from the beginning. It was amazing to see people that use Twitter everyday doing the early challenges along with the beginners to help them along. We shared pictures of our kids doing awesome stuff, motivational quotes, educational resources, and joked around some too.

We had our first department meeting since I started the challenge last week and I really felt like there was a different vibe in the room. I obviously have no concrete evidence to support that statement, but I don't think it's something I imagined. I truly hope we can keep going with Twitter and whatever else we come up with to help each other grow. If everyone can post at least 1 Tweet per day that shares, celebrates, or just informs the rest of us, I believe we would see tremendous gains for both us and our students.

I have aspirations of being a STEM supervisor in the future and have spent a good deal of time with administrators over the past couple of years trying to get a feel of what they go through on a daily basis. I have come to realize that they deal with a ton more than we do as teachers (and we deal with a lot). With that in mind, I continue to be amazed at what my principal does. @MSHSPrincipal was the only administrator to participate in every challenge and often went above and beyond what the challenge required. What's even more impressive about this is that she is borderline technology-challenged. I am sincerely thankful for her support, both in the Twitter Challenge and beyond. Working under her has made me a better teacher and I hope to be half as good as an administrator as her one day.