First #NCed Chat a Success!

Last night was the first ever #NCed Twitter chat. The conversation was rich! One hundred nine educators from across the state and outside the state actively participated, and several others lurked and learned. We had such great participation, in fact, that #NCed was the number 1 trending topic on Twitter last night around the world! If you missed the first chat, you can read the archive here. Participants shared tons of great ideas and resources for teaching the 4 Cs of 21st century learning: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication.

Some of you may be wondering about how the #NCed chat originated. The idea for #NCed first came up in a Google chat conversation between Dr. David Stegall and Jayme Linton, who are both strong believers in the power of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) and advocates for Twitter as a tool to build a PLN. They've worked to connect with other educators and districts face-to-face through conferences, meetings, and professional learning communities, but this networking is limited by time and distance. A PLN removes those barriers and allows us to connect with educators around the world. Through Twitter, their group of go-to educators changed from a handful of local folks to hundreds of exceptional educators around the world, most of whom they would never have had the opportunity to interact with otherwise.

The co-founders of #NCed often participate in Twitter chats that are targeted to specific populations and felt that there was a need to connect practitioners across the state of North Carolina. David and Jayme are both regular participants in #ncadmin, a bi-weekly chat for North Carolina educators, and they've experienced the power of connecting with others across the state. They wanted to do something similar and include educators at all levels - classroom teachers, curriculum specialists, administrators, teacher educators, pre-service teachers, and state-level educators - in order to broaden the scope of connections and conversations that are already happening in many districts. #NCed is all about building collective capacity across the state.

In Google chat on January 29, 2013, the idea for #NCed was born. Soon after, David and Jayme reached out to Heather Mullins and Cindy Geddes to be part of the #NCed team. Through Heather, the #NCed team was able to get the support of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. NC DPI has been instrumental in advertising for the chat across the state.

If you enjoy participating in #NCed, visit the "Other Chats of Interest" to find other great educational Twitter chats you may be interested in joining. Mark your calendar for the next #NCed chat on April 9th at 8:00 pm EDT.