Getting Back in the Swing

Wow, how embarrassing. 

This post took months to write. I had countless drafts on paper, on my laptop, on my iPad--none felt right. This November, I wrote over 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, but still no blog post. How silly is that? My most prevalent excuse was my transition from literacy coach back to school speech-language pathologist which was accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth. As part of this process, I busily searched for other speech therapist bloggers, tweeters, and Pinterest pinners. I also lurked on the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) member forums. While reading an ASHA forum focused on school speech therapy issues, I finally got the guts to post on a thread about reading comprehension. I had no idea how other speech and language professionals would react to my literacy-coach-mixed-with-speech-therapy thinking. Thankfully, Mary Cummings, an ASHA certified SLP, responded to what I wrote in a way that didn't make me feel like an idiot. So thank you, Mary Cummings, for reminding me that writing is a risk worth taking, spelling errors and all.

Twitter: Let's Do Lunch!

As I mentioned last week, it took me six months to compose my first tweet after opening my Twitter account. Good grief. I never considered Twitter as a way to connect and collaborate until Stacey's TWT post about trying out Pinterest and Twitter last November. Getting started with Pinterest felt easier although it took some trial and error. It has proved to be an excellent way to begin to connect with other speech therapists. With my transition back to speech this fall, I hoped that Twitter might also be a useful way to expand my hunt for other speech therapists like me. One problem is that I'm still so drawn to all the literacy tweets that I forget that I'm supposed to be looking for speech stuff. But I will keep at it. Like Pinterest and blogging, Twitter will take time and starting slow works fine with me. And right now, I am so excited when I see that someone I know from the TWT community posts a tweet. It feels like looking across a noisy crowded cafeteria on the first day of school and seeing a familiar face and being so relieved that I will have someone to eat lunch with. So if you are thinking about diving into Twitter but you are afraid of eating alone, don't worry. I'll look for you, if you'll look for me. Maybe we can eat lunch together. Seriously, if you are interested in Twitter, read Stacey's previously mentioned post and her recent post on microblogging. Also, check out the excellent LiveBinder below curated by Steven Anderson. It's filled with resources to help get you started with Twitter.



An Educators Guide To Twitter

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Starting to Tweet

I created a Twitter account at least six months ago. I figured out how to re-tweet but felt paralyzed composing my own tweet. One of my goals this summer was to get comfortable with Twitter so today, I tried again. I tweeted about how much I like the Blogsy app, then about what I was reading, and then I replied to a tweet posted by ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) about the misconceptions that colleagues have about the roles of speech therapists. I still don't really get the whole hash tag thing but I am determined. I've promised myself I will keep at it. Check out this tweet and blog post from Franki Sibberson.

On the Blog: Digital Writing: The First Six Weeks of School bit.ly/QHxQrR#dublinleadership12
— Franki Sibberson (@frankisibberson) August 7, 2012

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