Sometimes it takes me a long time to catch onto things in life. For example, it took me a long time to realise I was good at French. I had to complete a French degree, live in France for four years and get a 'licence' (equivalent to a BA) in linguistics in France before I could concede perhaps I had semi-mastered the language. And I still feel the need to attend a class every once and a while!
It also took me a long time to realise I wanted to teach. I was a French assistant in France for three years and an ESL teacher in the Czech Republic for a year. I then spent 3 years in the educational organization International Baccalaureate. Throughout all I was convinced I never wanted to be a teacher. It took an insightful manager to point out to me what I couldn't see myself. This July, after my first two week needs analysis placement for my French PGCE I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to sign up to this course. Why hadn't I been doing this my whole life?!
It also took me a long time to cotton on to Twitter. I had an account for years, attended a seminar on how to use Twitter, and admired all those I knew using Twitter effectively, but still remained BAFFLED. All these hashtags and @ signs. How do you find groups? But this week I feel I finally broke through the barrier. With a new goal in mind and a clear idea about what I would like to get from Twitter (and hopefully share on Twitter) I have now made a few adjustments. Firstly I changed my profile on my account to give me new focus. Then I tentatively sent out a few messages to my friends on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. In doing so I used my first hashtag and retweeted for the first time. I even got retweeted and mentioned a few times!
I know I still have a lot to learn. But I can't wait to meet a few more new people, read a few more new articles and find out about exciting websites that will help me on my path to being an effective teacher.
If anyone has any stories about their first forays into the realm of Twitter I would love to hear them or if you have any tips, please let me know.
This is the first step for me in embracing technology, and I very much look forward to learning as much as I can about how to use technology in the classroom and how to motivate and inspire children to learn, especially foreign languages. I suppose this will be a great year to try a few new things out.
See to the right for some of my Tweets!
