In case you haven’t noticed several of the Corsicana ISD learning community is connected to the educational world via twitter.  It has been amazing seeing so many educators on twitter learning, growing, and using it in the classroom. 

The most powerful piece to the Corsicana twitter puzzle is the fact that our superintendent @Dianedfrost  has supported and embraced twitter from the very beginning.  If the leader is on board, then most likely the others will move along. 

So how did this process all begin? 

Someone must have a vision
Someone in your district must believe in twitter and the power that it has in developing a Personal Learning Network or for classroom use. 

Someone must be willing to provide training
Once the vision has been realized this individual or someone else must provide training. Twitter is a microblogging site that many must be trained on how to use.  It takes more time to learn versus facebook.  They need a jumpstart on who to follow to build their PLN and how to mention, retweet, and all the other things you do with twitter.  They must also learn how to communicate with students via twitter if they so choose.

Someone must determine the initial target audience
The first big twitter learning session at Corsicana ISD took place at our summer administrative training.  Every single administrator in the district was trained on twitter by @herbertoneiljr. As I said earlier if you receive buy-in from the leadership in the district then the teachers will follow suit.

Someone must ensure that newly trained folks are engaged
  After the training all administrators were encouraged to participate in the weekly #txed chat that took place that night.  Our superintendent, Dr. Diane Frost participated as well as just about every single administrator.  After that night several of the administrators were sold on its power.  Again, after the training the educators must be exposed to something that will hook their interest.  Every time I teach a session on twitter I make sure that it is followed up by an educational chat. 

Someone must keep the conversation going
I felt it important to keep the conversation going via twitter.  Before I knew it more and more of our administrators were continuing to learn, grow, and communicate via twitter, and because of that many of our staff members took notice.  Remember superstars never want to be left out of something good!

Someone must train the staff
At a faculty meeting I held an optional learning session after the main meeting.  Several teachers and staff members stayed and were trained on Remind 101, Today’s Meet, and Twitter.  Many staff members either signed up or learned more about twitter.  That night everyone was invited to participate in the #txed chat.  After that meeting several of the Corsicana High School staff members were immediately bought in to its learning opportunities.

It has been great watching all of this unfold.  We still have a lot to learn, but it is wonderful being around people that are embracing learning.

Herbert