I'm a believer

Even though I was a die-hard Monkees fan as a kid (and still am), this post has nothing to do with the song of the same title. Sorry.

Instead, let's talk Twitter.

I'll admit, as tech-obsessed as I am, I never really jumped on the social-media bandwagon. I'm a bit introverted in real life, so I guess I follow suit in the cyber world as well. I did not join (and subsequently quit) MySpace. I'm not on Instagram. I read Tumblr for the funny stuff once in awhile, but I don't have an account. I'm not even on Facebook. No, really! I always joke that I work very hard to avoid certain family members in real life....why would I want them to find me easily on the internet? :) I did chat on AOL back in the day and I used ICQ in my college years. But then networking got crazy and I stepped back from instant messaging. Email was about all I used to communicate to others.

Fast-forward a bit and I guess you could say that I definitely had some misconceptions about Twitter in particular. I will admit that I thought it was only used by people to report what they were having for breakfast or what their cat was doing. I had no idea educators posted useful ideas, lesson plans, thoughts and support. I didn't know that I could find music teachers going through the same ups and downs that I experience in a day. Even though I have a great support network here in my own district, it's been amazing to meet people all over the country that share my passion to teach music to children. I meet (or try to meet) weekly to chat with them through #musedchat and I recently joined Dave Burgess's Teach Like a Pirate chat or #tlap chat.

I was introduced to Twitter by my principal. She brought in a great presenter who works in our district and I jumped in. When I got there, I was a bit confused with the @'s, #'s, the RT's....I'll admit, it has it's own little language and lingo. And don't even get me started with keeping it down to 140 characters! But it's worth stepping out of your comfort zone to grow as a professional. It took a couple weeks to get used to the whole thing and I still mess up and forget the hashtags...oh well, who cares? I still get to read some amazing stuff and connect with some fun, smart people! So to all of you who peek in and get confused by these things, keep going....push through and try again. Ask questions. It's worth it! Even I, the self-titled Anti-Social-Media Queen, am not completely anti- now. Yes. I'm a believer.

But I'm still not going to join Facebook. And you can't make me. Take that Zuckerberg. :)