In January, Deborah Mersino launched the weekly Twitter discussion group, #gtchat. Every Friday at noon and 7:00 p.m. (EST), parents, teachers, and gifted education advocates from across the globe gather together on Twitter to participate in an ongoing discussion about gifted education. As Deborah notes, participants in the forum "share resources, ideas, experiences, and new ways of thinking about gifted issues."

 

For those of you who don’t understand the ins and outs of Twitter, that pound sign (#) before “gtchat” is called a hashtag. The hashtag is designed to identify a specific topic. (For example, whenever I post a new blog entry at the Prufrock site, I list it on Twitter using the hashtag, #gifted.) So, #gtchat identifies postings of the discussion group that Deborah hosts.

 

On Deborah's website, Ingeniosus, you can see a sampling of the topics that have been covered on #gtchat so far and see transcripts of the discussions. A system also has been created in which prospective participants can vote on the two topics to be discussed each week. Recent topics have included:

One of the best things that results from these Twitter chats is the number of resources that people share. For instructions on how to participate in this weekly forum, click here. Deborah has the ability to break down difficult subjects into easy-to-understand words, so don’t feel intimidated if you’ve never used Twitter before. She makes it very user-friendly.