The internet is a big, information-laden place, and it can be quite daunting for educators to find what they’re looking for. While planning lessons, looking for advice, or searching for tools, use hashtags to identify information that’s relevant to your educational needs in social media.
Hashtags are used throughout social media networks, to organize and identify information, like #edchat or #edtech. They work as an identification mechanism, like a filing system, for tweets and other content in social media. Not only Twitter, but Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest all utilize hashtags. Each platform offers different kinds of content and can be used uniquely. You can start writing a hashtag by using the pound sign #, then begin typing your desired tag. A list of known hashtags will usually pop up like an auto-complete feature in most social media networks.
There are educators across the world who have organized topics on social media, and especially Twitter, by tagging them with hashtags. Most of the hashtags that are education related will link to an article in an online publication, a lesson plan from a publisher, a YouTube video, or some other content type, including individual tweets on Twitter. On Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest you will find posts through a specific hashtag, which you can then leave a comment on to discuss the content with the author or poster. For example, when I searched with the hashtag #elemmath on Facebook, I found a post from a group page called Mrs. Berry's 3rd Grade Classroom, that featured photos from a classroom project that could be useful for others to try. On Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, you can search for posts and photos with specific hashtags, but not comments on those posts or photos. If you are looking for a place to have an education-related conversation, Twitter is the platform of choice, because each tweet (with a 140 character maximum) can be given a hashtag, and searched at any time. Also, the nature of a live discussion on Twitter fosters engagement and encouragement.
You might be interested in finding live chats that take place on Twitter that are education related, on dozens of topics, all of which are scheduled in advance so you can plan ahead. Given the interactive nature of Twitter, the chat moderators are very enthusiastic about everyone’s involvement, which usually makes for a quality discussion. If you don’t make it online while a scheduled conversation is happening, you can easily search the tweets that were posted to review afterwards, using the same hashtag. To find a chat, select a hashtag that is relevant to your interests. When you type it into the search bar on Twitter, you’ll get a ton of search results. Select the PEOPLE tab at the top, to see if there is an account that schedules a chat - usually called a moderator. I have listed some accounts that from what I can tell, schedule and moderate the various twitter chats that are education related:
Topic - Hashtag - Moderator
21st Century Skills - #21stedchat - @Edu_Thompson
College Chat - #CollegeChat - @prepforcollege
Dual Language Chat - #duallangchat - @DualLangChat
Ed Tech Bridge - #edtechbridge - @EdTechBridge
Educational Technology - #edtechchat - @s_bearden
Elementary Education - #elemchat - @thompseg
Elementary Math - #elemmathchat - @MNmMath
English Language Teachers - #eltchat - @ELTchat
General Education Topics - #edchat - @web20classroom
Gifted/Talented Chat - #gtchat - @gtchatmod
Learning Chat - #lrnchat - @lrnchat
Music Education - #musedchat - @jguarr
New Teacher Support - #ntchat - @teachwithsoul
Social Studies - #sschat - @dankrutka
Special Education - #spedchat - @singoffpitch
I recommend you follow these accounts, get in touch, make a new friend! These people will also help you find more specific information you may be looking for. They’ve taken the time to really invest in the utility of Twitter chats, and offer a wealth of knowledge. There are endless hashtags that educators can use to organize and identify information they’re sharing with the world, and you can search any of them at any time. I have provided a brief list below, that I could not find specific chat organizers for, yet you can simply search for relevant content.
Arts Education - #artsed
Blended Learning - #blendedlearning
Common Core Chat - #ccchat
E-Learning - #elearning
Early Education - #earlyed
Educational Applications - #EdApps
Education Reform - #edreform
English Chat - #engchat
English Language Learners - #ELLChat
Flipped Learning - #flipclass
Games-Based Learning - #gbl
History Education Chat - #histedchat
Inquiry-Based Learning - #inquiryed
Math Chat - #mathchat
Mobile Learning - #mlearning
Project-Based Learning Chat - #pblchat
Science Education - #scienceed
Science Education Chat - #sciedchat
Special Needs - #specialneeds
Teacher Librarians - #tlchat
You can search with any of the hashtags listed in this article, on any social network to find content and relevant topics. For any topic you have an interest in, try searching with a hashtag first, because there will more than likely be posts about your topic somewhere online. Effective social media users will carefully assign a hashtag to a piece of content in order for it to be found. Simple searches like #highschool, or #middleschool can offer interesting results. There are endless possibilities for what educators can learn from social media, with the help of hashtags. The sheer quantity of options, experience, and examples that exist is why hashtags are so important, and why there are so many of them to now choose from.
Written by Melissa Pelletier, Education Technology Contributor