After going through lists of the Top 100 Edu Tweeters, 100 Professors you Should Follow and Learn from Twitter, and Top Rated Educational Resources to Follow on Twitter, one particular woman caught my eye. Her name is Vicki Davis but she goes by @coolcatteacher on Twitter. She is from Camilla, Georgia. According to her bio on her Twitter page she is the “Best teacher blog winter, co-founder of @flatclassroom, author of the book, “Flattening Classrooms,” a pioneer and a Mom.”
The reason why this woman’s Twitter sparked interest in my eyes was her uncanny ability to reply to anyone and everyone that contacted her on this Social Media site. I’m sure there are some tweets that go unanswered, but from what I can see, she takes the time out of her busy schedule to answer questions, make comments, and make her followers feel like friends. She tweets about topics ranging from “the health of your hard drive,” to “Fresh Fruit Salad for Mother’s Day,” to “Daily Education and Technology News for Schools.” She provides amazing resources to her followers. These resources are also included in her blog, called, “Cool Cat Teacher Blog.” This is a blog where the ideas for her Tweets come to life and are able to be expanded on.
When analyzing the list of followers that Vicki Davis has, as well as the list of which she follows, I felt like my future educational career was all coming into focus. To date, Vicki Davis has 51,93 Followers, and is following 6,702 people. The term “learning community” has been said so many times in the last 2 years of my college experience, and I have to say that Twitter is its own learning community, especially when you have as many followers as Davis does. Many of her followers are teachers, or active members in the field of education. It is important to know that there are many different types of teachers following Davis. She Tweets about various different school subjects, leaving no teachers behind in the availably of resources. Along with the huge numbers of teachers, hundreds of her followers are parents who are extremely involved in the education of their children. I think her list of followers says a lot about the type of person that she is. There are people following her from all over the world. There are even people who do not speak English. This speaks worlds of the type of person Vicki Davis is, as well as what she is Tweeting about. People enjoy the things she has to say, they look forward to reading the things she is blogging about and the new ideas she has to share. She is not just someone they follow to get their numbers up. She is someone to follow because she has a lot to say, and all of it is important.
Although I may not know Vicki Davis on a personal level, I feel included in her “conversational” Tweets about various things. She does an amazing job in involving all her followers in her Tweets and really makes you feel like you are all sitting down to a cup of coffee together. Just because I do not know Davis on a personal level does not mean that she is not an inspiration. I hope that one day, as an educator and as a mother, I can make as much of an impact on a learning community that she has.
Inconsiderately Polite 