Source: The JEDCHAT Blog
Dov Emerson reflects on the significance of the Jewish education twitter network (#JEDCHAT) being called out in a Washington Post article about how more and more teachers are turning to Twitter to connect with other educators for resource sharing, camaraderie, and support through tough times.
He writes about the #JEDCHAT community, a group that has only been text-chatting regularly via Twitter on Wednesday night’s at 9 EST for a little over 3 months.
He says:
" A network is a powerful tool. In the age of the internet and social media, it has become something that is infinitely more far reaching and stronger than before. Starting with little more than an idea of “hey, we can do this too!” a group of Jewish educators came together on Twitter to have a conversation. And all of a sudden, it became a “thing,” something real, a destination….
The people in our network are truly wonderful and inspiring educators. They are the ones, in the words of the Washington Post article, who “tend to be creative, motivated people with high standards for their own performance — the type who would rather try something new than pull out the yellowed lesson plans they’ve been using for years.” And when all these people come together through the internet, the network goes on hyperdrive….
So at the end of the day, it is wonderfully exciting for #jedchat to be included in an article by the mainstream press, especially in a publication as respected as the Washington Post. But to me, and to many others in our growing community, the real excitement lies in who will learn about #JEDCHAT through this and other articles and references, and in turn, help the network grow and create even stronger connections. Because as much as we look around and see a network of educators looking to share and learn from others online, we must remember that we are still the minority. Within the world of Jewish education, most educators do not even know what a hashtag is, let alone know that something like #jedchat exists."
Read the entire post on the #JEDCHAT Blog.
View the #JEDCHAT Archives to follow the recordings of the weekly #JEDCHAT discussions.