Thing 9: Twittering

I've been using Twitter for a few years now on a personal level, but only just jumped into the professional side of it this past school year.  At first, I used it just for getting "brand recognition" of the things I was doing out to the public.  If there was something interesting going on in my class or with Washburne Athletics, I would make a simple tweet, using the #CW36PRIDE or tagging the school's Twitter handle.  I never really used it for any other reason.  I follow various sports reporters on my personal account, but never really thought about following professional PE people.  I had never participated in a live chat either.

For the live chat, I chose to follow #healthyed.  At first, I was a little overwhelmed.  There is a lot going on in a twitter chat.  It's pretty hard for me to follow what everyone is saying.  It's tough going from one post to something completely different.  I did, however, find some cool articles and other ideas that I retweeted.  I think one of the cool things about retweeting something is that, yes, it allows others to see it, but it also gives me a point of reference to go back to reread something I saw earlier.   Something that stood out pretty negative with the chats was that it seemed to get spammed.  There was a "take this survey and win $500" tweet way too often.  It seems that people can abuse the hashtag rather easily.

I started following @SHAPE_America.  This is the Twitter handle for the national Physical Education advocacy group.  They also host the yearly National PE and Health convention.  They have retweeted some great articles about the importance of having daily PE in schools, and some other interesting articles.  I searched this past year's national convention, and saw some great tweets.  Someone took a video of their kids doing a game they learned at the convention.  It looked really easy to do, and the kids were having fun!  It's really easy to find new ideas like this, and read some great articles, using the hashtag search.  I will continue to search for other specific ideas, such as fitness testing and large group games.