It’s Not the Quantity it’s the Quality
I love my PLN. What it has done for my learning. From the tweeps to the #hashtags to the #chats I’ve learned from them all. A friend scoffed (a non Twitter friend) that I had over 1000 followers and I followed nearly as many. ‘Why’? he asked. You are ‘friends’ with over 1000 people. Preposterous! How often do you talk to these people? What do you get from them?
I stopped to reflect on that. Great question. 
Well, I think I engage with a decent percentage of my followers at least once a month. Hard to say. Sometimes its a whole bunch of sharing, chatting, collaboration at once. Sometimes its a read and re-tweet or reply or a DM and that’s it. They disappear into the vast Twitterverse. The point is they are THERE! My PLN is there when I need them to be, I hope they view me in the same way. I learn from them and I try my best to help others learn. Here’s how:
- I can tweet out a thought and get a response.
- I can tweet out a questions and get answers.
- I can tweet out a problem and receive guidance.
- I can tweet out request for resource and receive suggestions.
This can all happen pretty quickly. Sometimes I get responses in a few minutes. Sometime longer.
It’s not all about ME mind you. Everyone can see the conversation. Everyone can share it. Learn from it.
So that’s what I told my non Twitter friend . He was still perplexed until I made a unique connection with him. Twitter was tweeting out NHL draft picks faster than ESPN could report them. Wow!, he said-that is powerful then! #Sigh.. Well you got to start somewhere!
The Learning Journey 
I also find that I read other tweets and get inspired.
Thanks Liam. I just learn so much from other tweets. Alot of ideas and inspiration for sure.
It’s been a battle to get the non participants to get involved at my school. Yet, they all love the benefits that MY PLN brings… new ideas, inspiration, solutions, suggestions, questions and answers. They love having members of my PLN present via Skype and in person about their own teaching and learning. They love the connections I can bring when they want their classes to Skype with classes in other places. So what’s holding them up?
Success: We’ve made it a goal to get one new person to participate in #pypchat each time and we had 6 last week.
Question: do you think teachers who don’t blog themselves get the same value out of Twitter, or is it part of the whole picture?
Thanks Edna. Interesting questions you raise. Love the idea of getting a new member on #pypchat every week. Ive got to try that. I think we finally have enough staff members on Twitter now to push forth.
Edna’s Question: ‘do you think teachers who don’t blog themselves get the same value out of Twitter, or is it part of the whole picture’?
Hmm. For me personally they go hand in hand. I think you get more of a complete picture when combining Twitter with blogging. Twitter is like an appetizer, a 140 character taster while the blog can be a main course. I think Twitter even for non bloggers would still hold value for sure, and hopefully inspire others to blog, connect.