The power of a Hashtag

I recently attended eduTECH 2013 in Brisbane (still writing that blog post up), while I was there I discovered the true power of twitter. I have been using twitter on and off for about 8 months now just to tweet out interesting articles, follow some of my favourite authors and comedians and just trying to keep my head in the twitter universe. I thought twitter was a great resource but couldn't understand why so many people said it was a great professional development and networking tool. 

Then, while at eduTECH peeking over the shoulder of lady in front of me I discovered tweetdeck and then eventually hootsuit. By this time I thought that the hashtag at the end of  tweet was just a formality, little did I know this could be used to identify content and with the power of hootsuit/tweetdeck, be fed straight to me! So I googled education hashtags, and to my amazement found over 300 hashtags are currentlt being used for identifying all things education, covering everything from specific school subjects, specific grades, administration advice, eLearning, new teacher support and even a hashtag to talk about the school lunch (#schoollunch for those school lunch fans out there). 

So like any good technology, I soon learned that it is only as effective when used well, so I went about identifying the important educational topics I wanted fed to me (sorry, #schoollunch). 30min later and I now have myself my very own personalised education news channel feeding me educational advice, tips and hints, everyone from 1st year teachers to world renowned education experts are now at the push of a hashtag. 

Below is a screenshot of my hootsuit on iPad. If you are looking for a list of education hashtags just google it and choose the content you would like so see! If you haven't already, get on twitter, add me @fal86, if you get stuck comment below and I'll help you out!