Connections in the Twittersphere

Never in a million years did I think Twitter could be used as a professional networking tool. I've been a user of Twitter since 2013, mainly for personal reasons, and it had never occurred to me that people use it as a way to connect with their professional peers and colleagues.

Late in my undergraduate years at Monmouth College, did networking occur to me. When I had decided to forgo any graduate level studies, unlike the majority of my peers in the other science departments, I began working on branching out and making connections in the working world. Networking for me began with going to my college's career center which then lead me to create a LinkedIn. For those of you who do not know, LinkedIn is basically Facebook, but for work and careers. For a while, I thought that LinkedIn was the only professional networking platform on the internet. I had tried using Facebook in the past, to network, but I had no success with it.

Fast forward to the beginning of my Technology in Education class at Trinity Christian College, and as I look over the things I have to do before my first class, one thing catches my eye: Make a Twitter Account. I obviously did as I was assigned to do, and things made more sense once my instructor explained things to us. Twitter is an excellent professional networking tool because of how direct it is. Most of the time, people manage their own accounts. Whether it is an average person, a professional athlete, a PhD of Theoretical Physics, most people run their own accounts. This makes it much easier to get in direct contact with them and make connections, as compared to Facebook or LinkedIn. In my personal experience, the pages of public figures or authorities in certain fields usually have those pages as a front or are usually run by public-relations person.

I've had a great experience with my Twitter Personal Learning Network. I've made, and continue to make, great connections with educators and administrators from all around the globe! I've also found some great new learning philosophies and have read some very thought-provoking articles. My class has just passed its halfway point, but I definitely plan on keeping up with my professional twitter after my class ends.

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