It's Time for a Twitter Chat Intervention
I decided to take my first personal day in I don't know how many years and extend my weekend so that I could take a well deserved mini-vacation in Goa. It sounded great in theory, three full days of lazing in the sun reading David Sedaris's newest book with work the furthest thing from my mind...and then Twitter shattered my fantasy. Saturday evening while recovering from a day of burning my pasty white skin poolside in my decadent air conditioned hotel room, I found myself following along with #satchat followed by #satchatwc, while pretending to work on my report card comments so that I could avoid some serious mocking from my friend. Then on Sunday, after a hot stone massage, I found myself alone in the room trying to regain consciousness while my friend was having a facial. That is when #suncat that @barbarawmadden has renamed #sinchat happened. Not even the gorgeous sunset pictured above, or the arrival of my friend catching me in the act could tear me away from the great discussion led by @mssackstein about how to keep students engaged in their learning until the end of the year (more on this in my next post).
After half an hour of disapproving looks, I finally closed the computer and embraced a glass of wine (the chat was over after all). Judgy McJudgerson might have also shamed me with some disparaging comments that included things like "rock bottom", "addicted", "workaholic", and "Twitter ninja". That last one might have been mine. Did I mention the wine?
Fast forward to the next morning. I woke up refreshed and satisfied that I had the strength of conviction to still be in Goa while the rest of my colleagues and students were on their way to school. Such a rebel! So I made us some coffee, and then crawled back into bed and opened my computer...
...to #CAEdchat happening right before my very eyes! For those of you not familiar with hashtag lingo, #CaEdchat stand for California Ed chat... as in for teachers in CALIFORNIA. Trying to be discreet, I started reading the feed while "checking my email". It was too good to pass up. I don't even remember what happened for the remainder of that hour, but the next thing I knew, I was signing up to be part of a book chat on Daniel Pink's new book, "To Sell is Human" led by@clonghb, a physics teacher in... wait for it...California! When I told Judgy McJudgerson what I was doing, I had one of those out of body experiences where you see yourself for who you really are. For some reason hearing it out loud made it real. I am THAT guy! You know, the one that hijacks a state specific Twitter chat and then joins their summer book club. Having said that, a part of me was still in denial, until @clonghb posted this...
...a map of our book club. Ouch! I guess it IS time for an intervention. I admit it; I need to go to Twitter Chat rehab...but after I finish the book. I started reading it on the flight and I don't want to miss this chat! Baby steps.
For now however, it is getting late, and I have to get up early for work after taking three days "off". After all, I have to do something with all of these ideas I have from my weekend "vacation". Not to mention, tomorrow is Tuesday and you know what that means...#edchat!