This week's thank you: the experimenters

I have a reminder that goes off each Monday at 8:30am. The reminder says, "Write a Thank You Note".

I am a huge proponent of hand-written notes. People aren't used to getting them, so your awesome points increase immediately and exponentially. Also, I can't tell you how many times I've seen notes hanging in cubes of co-workers. Somewhat selfishly, it's a fantastic feeling that something you said touched another person enough that they want to see it every day. Or throw darts at it. Could go either way.

But sometimes you don't have a physical address, or if you dig up a physical address, the first thought of the recipient is, "I need to check my privacy settings." In that case, it is absolutely appropriate to send appreciation through the channels you communicate with the other person most often.

Such is the case with this week's thank you.

I've been on Twitter for several years, but only truly active for the past 18 months. I discovered Twitter chats when trying to learn more about the education industry and MoEdChat was the first Twitter chat I participated in. I tried lurking, but that lasted a few short minutes with the interesting questions and friendly banter among avatars.

With this extremely welcoming group of educators, I've caught the EdCamp bug, participated in Voxer chats and last week the moderator, Don Wettrick (@DonWettrick), was brave enough to live stream through Periscope while tweeting. As you can imagine, the keyboard and device agility on display was award winning.

I haven't participated in other state education chats, but I have a feeling the MoEdChat-ers are at the top of the game. By experimenting with the topics and the tools, they are helping scrape away the scary and get to the actual usability of these ideas and platforms. Every Thursday at 9pm Central is a safe place to experiment and to learn together.

So while I didn't write a thank you note to Laura Gilchrist (@lauragilchrist4), Keri Skeeters (@keriskeeters), Ted Hiff (@tedhiff), Debbie Fucoloro (@debbiefuco), Michele Nebel (@mnebel), Kathy Bellew (@kat_byte), Patti Jones (@shspjones) and David Geurin (@davidgeurin), I am using this blog (and tagging them on Twitter) to make sure they know how much I appreciate their innovation, excitement and willingness to include an outsider in these experiments.

For those of you disappointed that I didn't write a hand-written note this week, rest assured. I wrote my grandmother a letter instead.

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