It's like something out of a sci-fi novel. Connecting to thousands of people to find the answer to an issue, to solve a problem, or communicate on a given topic. It doesn’t seem possible that every two minutes you are updated with the thoughts, ideas, and readings of others around the world.

Sure, I could have gone to Google and searched for resources on Cyberbullying and Internet safety. But why have a computer try to guess what I'm looking for when I can have the collective intelligence of over one thousand professional educators working for me.

I write:



My feed updates every two minutes and two minutes later, my human aggregator starts to answer. Answers pour in by other educators and educational technology people that know exactly what I’m looking for. Over the next hour, I receive 15 links to different websites and resources.

• No searching Google
• No trying to guess which result is going to give me what I want
• My new search engine is human, specific to my needs as an educator
• It is my one stop shop for the latest:
• Blog posts worth reading
• Technology news relevant to education
• News stories related to my interests

And the ability to ask it questions and get pertinent results in a matter of minutes
No, this isn’t some new beta web site, and in fact, many of you reading this are already a part of it I’m sure. Those of you who are not, you’re missing the greatest educational search engine and resource finder known to date.

Are you ready for it?

How do you get started?

1. Go to Twitter.com and set up an account. Make sure in your bio you put something about being in education
2. Once you are logged in go to www.twitter.com/jutecht and click the follow button (I will follow you back)
3. Scan through the list of other educators that I follow and follow me and pick about 30 to get started.
4. Go to Twhirl.org and follow the directions to download the twitter client for your make and model of computer (you will need to download Adobe Air as well...but you should do that anyway)
   
5. Start Twhirl when you start your computer
6. Give yourself at least two weeks of being an active user of twitter

Twitter is the best human aggregation system that I have come across to date. Rich in resources and the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of educators around the world makes it a must have professional development tool. By joining the collective knowledge of other educators you are not only able to tap into this amazing body of knowledge for your own learning and resources gathering, but you also become part of the aggregation system making the system as a whole that much stronger, relevant, and accurate for all.