Joining in: the online teaching community

There is a thriving online teaching community, a lively collection of educators with a host of ideas and tips. I was going to say that I've learnt more through Twitter in the last twelve months than in the last three years of whole inset-type provision, but that's probably not fair. I'm thinking of the whole-school/whole-college inset stuff whereas of course the material I see on Twitter is already filtered according to the particular teachers and experts I choose to follow. And that's the point, really. There are so many tweeting and blogging teachers and education leaders that it's relatively easy to find people with ideas that appeal to you.

Anyway, for anyone interested in finding their niche in the online teaching community, here are some of the people whose words I generally appreciate:

Geoff Barton (@RealGeoffBarton) - a model of good sense and grounded views
http://blog.geoffbarton.co.uk/site/Blog/Blog.html

Joe Kirby http://back2thewhiteboard.wordpress.com/ - some interesting and practical ideas (his suggestions for speed-marking books in a meaningful way are brilliant)

Christopher Waugh (@Edutronic_net) - founder of the fabulous blogsync project, bringing teacher bloggers together
http://blogsync.edutronic.net/

Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) - interesting and outspoken views on education

Alan Gibbons (@mygibbo) - libraries campaigning and sensible discussion about reading and literacy

Isabella Wallace (@WallaceIsabella) - author of 'pimp my lesson' - some quick and dirty ideas for livening things up

Calderstones English Dept (@CaldiesEnglish; @LucyD1237 - author of the fabulous GCSE persuasive writing 'Boxing to argue' resource)
http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Active-Writing-framework-Boxing-to-Argue-6323163/

TES English (@TESEnglish)

Guardian Education (@GuardianEdu; @GuardianTeach)

This is just a small selection to get you started. Feel free to check who I follow - don't feel you have to follow me! (I'm @BethKemp)