Many years ago, I (Peter) wrote this blog explaining why so many educators were joining Twitter, now X. In the blog post from 2011, I wrote,
Many educators are intrinsically motivated to find their own professional development. They read websites and blogs and are members of organizations that send them journals. They read more educational material than they read books for fun. Twitter is one resource they should add to their list because they will find blogs, articles, and videos that they might never be able to find on their own. There is just too much out in cyberspace to be able to find these resources through regular search engines.
Twitter introduced both of us to so many educators around the world who have now become friends and part of our learning community. Yes, real friends who we have met up with in person, created relationships with, and still talk to today.
Unfortunately, as we now know, a lot changed with Twitter after it became known as X, and it became more difficult to connect and learn with fellow educators. We all began to see more and more political posts and advertisements that we never wanted. Fake accounts seemed to infiltrate our feeds, and over the last few months, more and more people left the social media platform .
Bluer Skies Ahead
It seems that now we have a much healthier option, which takes us back to the good ole feels we experienced when it came to interacting with other educators on Twitter in 2011. This newer platform is called Bluesky. Over last weekend alone, it seemed as though thousands of educators were joining the social media platform. We both (Michael Nelson) and (Peter DeWitt) joined the fun and created accounts, too.
If you decide to join Bluesky, there are a few pieces of information you will need to know. That information is:
- It’s intuitive - It will take you a few minutes to get used to the format, and for those of you familiar with Twitter before it became X, you will notice many similarities.
- Feeds - You can follow feeds that focus on educational research, doing triathlons, or engaging in discussions about art.
- Lists - Bluesky allows users to create their own communities, where they can add other users who are interested in connecting and learning from one another. Included below is an example of a list that we created, along with a QR code to join us in the community.
- Starter packs - This option is in your main profile, and it allows you to share your favorite feeds and information with people who follow you or people you would like to connect with who you believe may be interested. If you have more than 150 followers, the starter pack seems to be disabled.
- Media - You can easily upload videos to share with others.
Authentic Social Interconnectedness
As we get older, we no doubt feel nostalgic about experiences we had from days passed, but this feels different from just nostalgia. Nostalgia alone is talking and reminiscing about the past and does not necessarily mean moving forward in new ways. With Bluesky, those of us who are nostalgic about Twitter from old days where connected with people and learned from each another can tap into that nostalgia as we navigate this new platform called Bluesky. Bluesky feels like a social media platform where we can learn from the good connections we used to make on X (Twitter).
Bluesky not only allows us to connect in our feeds but allows us to build educational communities of our interests and needs in order to support the learning of students and our colleagues, get back to engaging in chats, and connecting with other educators from around the world but do so in a more effective manner.
In the few days we have been a part of the Bluesky social platform, we have:
- Learned strategies to incorporate into our professional learning presentations.
- Read articles and listened to podcasts from links in our feeds.
- Responded to posed educational survey questions.
- Connected to “old friends” and generated some new ones, too!
In the End
Bluesky seems very intuitive. We have been able to authentically engage in connecting, exploring, and learning so quickly. The language in the posts is positive and full of excitement about positively growing the future of education for ourselves and our students.
The old adage is that what’s old is new again, and Bluesky is a new platform that brings us some old feelings of a time when social media offered so much opportunity to create authentic connections with friends and colleagues you didn’t know you needed but we so glad you found.
Check it out! Join us on this learning journey!
