What I learned in 20 Minutes This Morning

I usually arrive at school at around 0650 every day. Most days I don't have a first period class, so by 0700 I'm usually on my laptop preparing lessons for the days classes. I wasn't in too much of a hurry this morning because much of my day was to be spent watching student presentations, so I didn't have a lot to get ready.
As I got started on a Keynote presentation, I was distracted by the chirp of Tweetdeck and I saw a post from a history teacher I follow that included the hashtag #SSCHAT. I was reminded that there is a weekly social studies chat on twitter that was starting right then (Monday at 7pm EST or Tuesday morning for me). I remembered having voted for this weeks topic even thought I had never participated before. The topic was 'using technology to enhance social studies education' so I tuned in. By tuned in I mean that I added a column to Tweetdeck for the #SSCHAT hashtag.
Tweets began popping up concerning platforms for class websites, which is currently a topic of great interest to me. I joined the conversation and was convinced to give Edmodo a try (which is on my to-do list for next week). I also sent a tweet asking if anyone was willing to share links to their own class websites so I could 'steal' ideas. I received several links in reply and now have some great examples of how other social studies teachers are building and using class websites.
I mentioned in a tweet my frustration with the block my school has placed on FaceBook during school hours and my quest for good arguments and case studies to support my case to unblock it. Cybraryman sent me a link to a resource page of his (http://cybraryman.com/facebook.html) that is full of FaceBook resources that will be of immense help to me. I also learned that other social studies teachers share my view that FaceBook should be used because students are already using it.
During the short time I was participating in the chat I also found that my PLN had grown by 6 followers. Basically, it was the most constructive 20 mins I've spent since the last EARCOS conference (which is where I met most of the people that began my Twitter PLN).