In July of 2013, I founded #BCedchat, the official Twitter chat for the province of British Columbia. The development and maintenance of this chat has been both challenging and rewarding for myself and the moderation team. We have hosted over 25 chats to date, with between 500-1000 tweets in the hour that it takes place, bringing together a professional learning community within individual school districts and across the province. The hashtag is also now used as the official space to discuss professional development matters that concern British Columbian educators.
After the chat's successful debut on July 7th, I wrote a blog post reflecting on the amount of planning and collaboration it takes to start an ongoing Twitter chat. This original post has since helped many others start their own district & provincial/state chats, and it is listed below:
After the chat's successful debut on July 7th, I wrote a blog post reflecting on the amount of planning and collaboration it takes to start an ongoing Twitter chat. This original post has since helped many others start their own district & provincial/state chats, and it is listed below:
It Takes a Village to Raise an Edchat
Over the past week and a half, I've been highly focused on the development of #bcedchat with my partner in crime and co-mod, Bryn Williams. Through a lot of groundwork and endless promotion, our first chat on Sunday, July 7th was a success. We received about 500 tweets in the hour of discussing our topic of summer professional development. Our inaugural chat played host not only to BC and Canadian educators, but many more others from all over the globe!
As the culture of our chat begins to take shape, I've been actively tapping into resources in my PLN to help to better develop awareness and involvement in it. Most recently, I was able to have a Google HangOut with Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark, who have co-founded #cdnedchat and #caedchat respectively. They have both been incredibly kind and supportive by sharing resources and words of wisdom as we move forward with this chat.
If you are considering starting your own Twitter edchat in your area or about a specific topic, here is the information I've gathered so far that can help to make it successful.
As the culture of our chat begins to take shape, I've been actively tapping into resources in my PLN to help to better develop awareness and involvement in it. Most recently, I was able to have a Google HangOut with Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark, who have co-founded #cdnedchat and #caedchat respectively. They have both been incredibly kind and supportive by sharing resources and words of wisdom as we move forward with this chat.
If you are considering starting your own Twitter edchat in your area or about a specific topic, here is the information I've gathered so far that can help to make it successful.
1) PROMOTION
I cannot stress enough the importance of promotion as you begin a chat. Getting the word out to gain participation is imperative to a chat's success. Depending on the type of audience you'd like to draw in, the promo can look different. For a provincial/state-wide chat, it's best to get a small group of people that will help get the word out by tweeting and retweeting your posts. For a smaller chat (for example, specific to a school district) you may want to aim your promo tweets at the specific people that you want involved instead of sending out a blanket invitation. No matter your target audience, be sure to promo as often as possible (without being obnoxious) as tweets disappear down a Twitter feed relatively quickly.
2) WEBSITE & TWITTER ACCOUNT
This step is probably more necessary for larger-scale chats that would host several participants. I developed a website for #bcedchat with a page for topic selection using a Google form which has been gathering us several new topics to choose from for upcoming chats. While I chose Google sites due to its ease of use with Google Drive, docs, and forms, there are many different site hosts you can choose from and alternate ways to run polls or topic suggestions for upcoming chats. We most recently developed a Twitter account for @bcedchat which we will use for promotional purposes as well as tweeting out introductory and closing comments in the chats themselves.
3) CHAT COMMITTEE/COLLABORATION TEAM
This was something that came highly suggested by Tanya and Holly, as there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes of an edchat. Now that we have the chat started, it has become apparent that there will be weekly tasks of promotion, topic and question development, pre-scheduling tweets, archiving, and of course, moderating the chat itself. Burn-out will most definitely occur if only one or two people are responsible for continuing to do all of this every week when real-life demands decide to strike hard. Surrounding your chat with a great group of people to help run it when you can't is important not only for the chat, but for you, the founder. Depending on the size of your chat, you probably don't need a lot of people for this job, but you will want to ensure they have a common vision in mind as you collaborate on a direction for the chat together.
Thanks for reading - these are merely my reflections as Bryn and I have embarked on this journey with getting #bcedchat off the ground. I'm sure that in a few weeks, I will be able to add so much more as we play with and learn about this process.
I cannot stress enough the importance of promotion as you begin a chat. Getting the word out to gain participation is imperative to a chat's success. Depending on the type of audience you'd like to draw in, the promo can look different. For a provincial/state-wide chat, it's best to get a small group of people that will help get the word out by tweeting and retweeting your posts. For a smaller chat (for example, specific to a school district) you may want to aim your promo tweets at the specific people that you want involved instead of sending out a blanket invitation. No matter your target audience, be sure to promo as often as possible (without being obnoxious) as tweets disappear down a Twitter feed relatively quickly.
2) WEBSITE & TWITTER ACCOUNT
This step is probably more necessary for larger-scale chats that would host several participants. I developed a website for #bcedchat with a page for topic selection using a Google form which has been gathering us several new topics to choose from for upcoming chats. While I chose Google sites due to its ease of use with Google Drive, docs, and forms, there are many different site hosts you can choose from and alternate ways to run polls or topic suggestions for upcoming chats. We most recently developed a Twitter account for @bcedchat which we will use for promotional purposes as well as tweeting out introductory and closing comments in the chats themselves.
3) CHAT COMMITTEE/COLLABORATION TEAM
This was something that came highly suggested by Tanya and Holly, as there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes of an edchat. Now that we have the chat started, it has become apparent that there will be weekly tasks of promotion, topic and question development, pre-scheduling tweets, archiving, and of course, moderating the chat itself. Burn-out will most definitely occur if only one or two people are responsible for continuing to do all of this every week when real-life demands decide to strike hard. Surrounding your chat with a great group of people to help run it when you can't is important not only for the chat, but for you, the founder. Depending on the size of your chat, you probably don't need a lot of people for this job, but you will want to ensure they have a common vision in mind as you collaborate on a direction for the chat together.
Thanks for reading - these are merely my reflections as Bryn and I have embarked on this journey with getting #bcedchat off the ground. I'm sure that in a few weeks, I will be able to add so much more as we play with and learn about this process.
