Twitter as a Professional Development Source

We all know the value of Twitter as a source of information.  There is a lot of stuff out there!  I teach in a small school and although my administrators have been very supportive of me and all our teachers attending conferences, we obviously can't attend something every week or even every month.  We all try to get to one each year.  

Twitter offers a way for me to keep in touch with other educators and librarians and to continue to learn daily and weekly.  I follow some of the most interesting people in the literacy field including authors, librarians, teachers and administrators.  

I just finished #titletalk facilitated by Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp.  There were probably 30 to 40 teachers and librarians in on this chat.  It was awesome.  I have always wanted to join this.  I am ashamed to say, this was the first one I have gotten to.  It won't be the last.  I have already set it up to re-occur in my calendar.  

Tonight we chatted about summer reading.  How do we keep students engaged.  Lots of ideas floated around.  The ones I gravitated to, that seemed realistic to me, were setting up a book swap before the end of the year, opening the library during summer school 2or 3 days a week, and maybe... setting up a little free library on our main street.  

Another thing that was discussed at length was the value of offering incentives to reading.  Does it hinder students becoming lifelong readers.  I am going to be reading the research on this.  Interesting topic.  It kind of flies in the face of what we buy into.  

I have a lot of books on my pile for summer.  I think I'll get an early start, like now!