In the midst of a night out in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I stopped to sup at
Paulie Gee’s. Paulie serves up delicious brick oven pizzas with poetic names and ridiculously
tasty combinations. It is worth ordering more than one Baconmarmalade Picante, as this is one you don’t want to stress about sharing. I checked into
Paulie Gee’s on Foursquare (which I link to Twitter and Facebook). Contrary to what my less public friends believe, I don’t share
everything, and I’m
mostly selective about what I do choose to post.
The pizzas were delicious, and when I finally came up for air, I noticed a man in the open kitchen area looking at his iPhone and doing that tell-tale thumb-scroll down the screen. Then this man leaned over to talk to one of the servers, and she motioned over to my table. I immediately deduced this guy was
Paulie, and he had just read
my tweet. He came over, shook hands with us all, told us we ordered correctly (as he was almost out of
kale and figs), and gifted me my bacon marmalade vanilla ice cream sundae for dessert. I’ll be back in a heartbeat.
I’ve been trying to get my faculty to use Twitter for a few years now, and not for just desserts. I follow hundreds of educators and technologists who share ridiculously awesome project ideas, websites, gadgets, hot topics, survey data, blog posts, humor, and personal insights. I forward tons of links to my faculty, and I try to always include the Twitter username of the original poster to reinforce who to follow for great resources.
I frequently explain the concept of a
PLN to teachers at my school. I am blessed with multiple Personal Learning Networks, and I tell how Twitter introduced me to many people in my field or who share interests in food, music, technology, New York, travel, photography, etc. At
Educon,
EdCampPhilly,
NAIS,
TEDxNYED,
TEDxDenverEd,
TEDxEast, and
ISTE, it was such fun to finally meet face-to-face people that I’d been following for minutes, days, months, or years. I show how the convention of
Twitter hashtags makes it so much easier to find new people to follow, join thematic discussions, and virtually attend a conference/meeting. Finally, I differentiate between aggregators and aggravators; One gathers news for me, and the other gets an eventual
unfollow.
Ultimately, Twitter is a microblogging tool and a social networking site, and I hope I reach some sort of balance between using it socially and professionally without alienating/annoying every one of my contacts. Or perhaps I’m kidding myself. Last month, I was on a tour of Pearl Harbor. The guide asked if there were any celebrities amongst us. I deadpanned, “I’m a minor celebrity on Twitter.” Another lady in our group returned, “Only in your own mind.” I would have preferred a
retweet.
Karen Blumberg 