I love CPD. I love conferences. I love meeting other teachers. I love talking about teaching. Whenever I attend a training course or teach meet I always leave inspired and excited. Let’s face it, as teachers we spend a lot of time in our own space, it’s so invigorating to spend time with others educators. But sooo expensive! How often are you ‘allowed out?’

A couple of months ago I was invited by OneNote Central (@OneNoteC, the energetic Marjolein Hoekstra) to co-host a TweetMeet on Transforming Classroom Time. Actually before that one she invited me to another one, but when I explained that I would be travelling during part of the preparation time she explained that there would be lots to do in the run up, and I would be better off waiting until I could commit fully. She was right.

I’ve attended TweetMeets before, usually chipping in whilst marking or planning or something, but never hosted before. Marjolein added me to a OneNote with all the other 20 or so hosts, and to an MS Teams teams too. There was a phenomenal amount of support material in these places, the planning was organised like clockwork. We all met over Skype on a Sunday evening with a couple of weeks to go to agree the questions. 20 educations from all over the globe. The collaboration was brilliant, comments and ideas pinging through in the chat window whilst everyone spoke, the OneNote filling up with five finely crafted questions, ready to post. We were all introduced to tools that were newer to come of us than to others: www.buffer.com, www.flipgrid.com, www.tweetdeck.com. We used these over the days that followed to scheduled promotional tweets and record videos, ably assisted by Marjolein, Francisco (@fcotexeira), Anica (@AnicaTrickovic) and guest moderator Sacha (@svanstraten). Like Christmas, I found the run-up to the event almost better than the event itself. There was plenty to do, and the excitement built steadily.

The Big Day arrived. I rushed home and logged into Buffer and Tweetdeck, and joined the Skype backchannel chat. When I joined there was only a handful of other hosts on there, all chatting nervously together. I was excited and a little jumpy, getting my workspace all ready.

As soon as the chat started the nerves disappeared, the way they do, and so did the chatter. I could only hear the clatter of keyboards over the backchannel, that and Marjolein’s encouragement and guidance as we fielded questions and comments which pinged into my Twitter feed in astonishing volume. The whole thing lasted an hour, but felt like a few minutes. I was introduced to another tool, www.screenbeam.com, and a whole load of inspirational teachers from all over the globe.

The whole event was a bit like Christmas for me. It was over far too quickly. The build-up was exciting. The event itself frantic, and I was left with some lovely gifts.

‘Real’ CPD is great of course, it’s good to meet other educators in person. But I tell you what, the TweetMeet was amazing. We all know we don’t really get enough opportunities to talk teaching together, to share ideas, perspectives and materials. But these events happen all the time on Twitter. The next #MSFTEduChat is being planned even as I write – search for it! Maybe this is the future of CPD: online, collaborative, with a cast of thousands. We will always benefit from face-to-face conferences and events of course, but chats like this add something else to your experience as a professional. You can revisit the people and material as often as you like, and I was left with the same inspired buzz as for the ‘real thing’. I know I’ll be a regular from now on. Turn on, tune in, share stuff! See you at the next one!