In order to be cutting edge and stay relevant in any career field, you need a Personal Learning Network (PLN)! A PLN consists of individuals who you choose to take part in your professional development. These individuals share resources, exchange ideas with you, offer support, and collaborate with you. Twitter is one of the quickest ways to establish a PLN. However, many educators new to Twitter may not understand how the process works. In the beginning, I used to only update then I discovered how to engage with others in order to build a strong PLN.
If I only knew then what I know now…
You probably do not have the time to read all the Twitter materials available, but do you have 3 minutes and 20 seconds? In the PRESTO below, I share with you how I continue to build my PLN using Twitter.
What is a PRESTO?
PRESTO, PRESent your TOpic, is a video presentation style created by Heike Philp. In a PRESTO, the speaker creates a PowerPoint of 10 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds, which means the entire presentation is only 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. You can do the PRESTO on any topic you wish and Heike will coach you through it in an online meeting platform. Creating a PRESTO with Heike really prepares you for video presentations. During the process, I learned about lighting, nonverbal communication, voice, pitch, and presence. Therefore, I recommend you read Heike Philp’s post for more information about PRESTO and how you can take part in this type of professional development.
More Resources
To make your Twitter adventure much easier, please visit these links and resources:
- To learn more about each role, check out my guest post on Burcu Akyol’s blog, Spread Your Knowledge: Join Twitter.
- Stacy Bodin’s website, Twitter Help for Educators, with over 300 educators to follow!
- Karenney Sylvester’s Teacher’s Guide to Twitter!
- Youtube channel with video tutorials on using Tweetdeck, Delicious, RSS Readers, EchoFon, RSS Flash G, and more!
- EchoFon– Free Iphone app that acts as a browser for Twitter
- RSS Flash G– Tweet your favorite RSS feeds in seconds, share with others on Google reader, save in Delicious
Challenge:
Make a PRESTO or try one of the tools mentioned in this post!
You may want to subscribe to receive regular updates, leave a quick comment of how one of these tools helped you, tweet this, or share this series with your Personal Learning Network (PLN) through your RSS reader or Delicious account.
