Drew Furtado

If you’re an educator and not on Twitter, my only question is, why not?

Yes, Twitter has become the haven for fact denying internet trolls. However, it’s also an excellent place for teachers to engage with other educators. Educators regularly share updates from their classrooms, seek feedback on lessons, and develop innovative behavior strategies.

I find Edu-Twitter to be one of the more selfish places on the internet. However, there are large pockets of inspiration. I am the only person who teaches media arts in my district. However, I am not the only media arts high school teacher in the US, and Twitter has connected me to 100’s of similar teachers. Being active on Twitter allowed me to collaborate with digital art teachers all across the globe, find new ways to teach skills, and seek support about the pitfalls of being in today’s classroom.

Joining Twitter can be an overwhelming experience, especially as a new user. Learning how to search content by hashtags will allow users to find the most relevant content. Users can also use hashtags to make their content more visible and increase the chances of like-minded people to see posts.

Education Hashtags

Recently I’ve been analyzing Twitter keywords. These keys words are collected by AI systems that scan all of Twitter for relevant text in posts. For an educator who’s trying to be seen, utilizing this data can help improve the performance of Tweets. For teachers who have something to sell and market, knowing keyword trends can increase sales and leads.

I used the social media tool Sprout Social to narrow down what keywords are popular in the Edu-Twitter world in the last 30 days of September and August. Please note, Sprout Social is a premium software, and I’m not endorsing the program, nor have I been compensated by the web tool to write this blog.

I searched Twitter for the following education-related keywords:

• School
• Education
• Classroom
• Teaching
• EdTech
• EdChat

Analysis

‘School‘ was the most popular keyword featured in Twitter posts. On average, the keyword appeared on over 650,000 daily tweets, and over 20 million posts included the keyword ‘school’ in posts. While this data is fascinating, it mainly demonstrates people’s conversations regarding mask mandates, critical race theory, and back to school.

The keyword ‘education‘ appeared in over 6 million posts and included a daily average of 202,000 posts. As widespread as this keyword is, the data doesn’t demonstrate teachers’ engagement with other teachers.

While the keywords ‘school’, ‘education,’ and ‘classroom’ are noisy and rowdy spaces, several keywords demonstrate a positive interaction between educators. Edu-Twitter chats pop up most nights, where diverse teachers meet to discuss important aspects of education. They seek inspiration, affirmation, and support each other.

Edu Hashtags

#edchat is a weekly Twitter event focused on engaging educators on various topics. Each Tuesday at 12 pm and 8 pm EST, the event takes place and engages almost 2,000 daily tweets.

#EdTech and #Edtechchat is another popular Twitter chat that offers educators to engage with each other while focusing on technology in the classroom. This chat takes place on Mondays at 5 pm EST.

Another thoughtful conversation teachers engage in is #SatChat. #Satchat meets each Saturday at 7:30 am EST.

If you’re looking for innovative and thoughtful practices in the classroom, I suggest checking out the Twitter chat #tlap. The chat focuses on the ‘Teach Like a Pirate’ principles created by teacher Dave Burgess. The chat engages on Mondays at 7:00 pm EST.

jump in the conversation

I’ll never forget the first Edu-Twitter conversation I engaged in. It was awesome! It was an amazing experience to digitally meet and learn from the nation’s top educators. It also inspired me to try new things, and look at teaching differently. Thousands of Edu-Twitter chats take place each week. An exhaustive calendar of education Twitter Chats can be found here.