Twitter and Conferences are like Peanut Butter and Jelly

Twitter and Conferences do go hand in hand. I just finished reading this blog post by Chris Brogan. In the post entitled 27 Things To Do Before a Conference it says to check twitter for posts about events or conference topics. I am getting ready to head out to the Northeast Louisiana Tech Fair in West Monroe, Louisiana and the keynote speaker Brain Mull has requested that all participants complete a task before arriving to his session. The assignment is as follows.....

Sign up for Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/. Once you sign up, you will see a textbox within your account where you can type a message (of 140 characters or less). I’ll explain a bit more about this tool during the session, but for now I am just going to give you a quick assignment. In the textbox, answer this question. What is the main barrier stopping you from using more innovative forms of technology in the classroom? At the end of your answer, type #NLTF. Again, I’ll explain more on Saturday.

It was interesting to see the hand full of folks that responded to the call. There were only 8 but people still have today to get involved. The average tweet was about 3 per person. One fellow actually just joined and was following 20 people. I guess that is how twitter keeps going! What a great activity to show people how they can follow each other at a conference or get notes on conferences that they don't even attend. Not going to a conference like Florida Educational Technology Conference -FETC then try #FETC to get a micro-blogging version. The power of Twitter is amazing! I can't wait to see all the tweets - Tweet On Region 8!