Using Twitter to Supercharge Your Professional Development

In 2015, Howard Pitler explained how teachers can use hashtags and education chats on Twitter as free professional development. The guide below is published as originally written, and the section after it covers what has changed by 2026: the move from Twitter to X, the growth of Bluesky among educators, and where chats happen now.

Something I recommend in my work with schools and districts is to leverage social media to their advantage as a professional development tool. When I ask a group of educators how many are using Twitter, either personally or professionally, I am frequently saddened by the lack of hands I see raised. Many teachers think of Twitter as something with no value in the education realm. After all, how much content can you receive in 140 characters. Just the opposite is true. Twitter might be the strongest professional development tool available – and it’s free!

The secret to getting the most out of Twitter as an educator lies in knowing how to use hashtags (#) – those things we used to call the number signs last century. I would recommend educators new to Twitter do a few things to begin getting the most out of this great resource.

Creating an Account and Finding Education Chats

First, if you don’t already have one, get a Twitter account. It’s fast, easy, and free. Go to www.com, click on login on the top right, and then click “New User.” Fill out just a little information and you now have a Twitter account. Be sure to complete your profile and include in that profile that you are an educator. This becomes very important when you begin building your professional learning network (PLN).

Once you have an account, look for the search window on the top right next to your name. In the “Search Twitter” window, type #edchat and then return. Edchat is one of the oldest and largest education focused chats on Take a few minutes to browse the archives. Read the rich discussions that happen every week on this chat. You can also browse the archives by going to https://edchat.pbworks.com/w/page/219908/FrontPage. Every weekly Edchat conversation is archived there. Look at the listing by date and then click to read. Some of the top names in professional development are regulars on Edchat.

While Edchat is it one of the largest and oldest chats on Twitter, there are scores of focused chats that might appeal to you even more. Find a chat that most appeals to you by going to https://sites.google.com/site/twittereducationchats/education-chat-calendar. This Google calendar lists all of the major chats by interest area and lets you know when they are live.

Some are geographically-focused like #MOEdchat for Missouri educators or #Africaed for African educators. Others are content-focused. #ELAChat, focusing on English and Language Arts, and #Precalcchat, discussing Pre-Calculus issues, are just two examples. There are also job-alike sessions like #ElemMathChat, #SpecEdChat, and #SuptChat. At first you probably will join a chat and just watch the conversations. This is called lurking and is a perfectly acceptable way to get started in live chatting. At some point though, you will have a question or feel compelled to reply to a comment. Just compose a tweet and be sure to add the hashtag of that particular chat at the end of your tweet so it appears in the flow of conversation. That’s it!

Following Educators and Growing a Network

The final step in getting the most out of Twitter is to follow smart people. When you follow someone you will see his or her tweets when you log onto Most people will follow you back. The more people you follow the wider and more powerful your PLN becomes. Unlike Facebook where friending someone you really don’t know in person is frowned upon and just a bit creepy, following other educators on Twitter is widely accepted and considered smart. Start by following me @hpitler and I promise to follow you back IF you have mentioned in your profile that you are in education.

Once you get involved in Twitter as a way to grow professionally, the possibilities are almost limitless. Gather research for an article or blog post by posting questions to your PLN. Receive constructive criticism on a lesson plan, presentation, or idea from other educators. Share tips and get advice on things like parent/teacher conferences and open houses. Collaborate with others to solve a specific issue at your school. Once you get started you just might become an evangelist. I know I did.

Howard Pitler, Ed.D. is an author of “Classroom Instruction that Works,” 2nd ed., “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works”, and “A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works,” 2nd ed. He has worked with teachers and administrators internationally for over a decade to improve outcomes for kids. He was named a National Distinguished Principal by NAESP and is an Apple Distinguished Educator. He can be reached on Twitter at @hpitler, or on his website, www.hpitler.com

Twitter for teachers in 2026: what has changed since the original guide

Twitter for teachers has changed a good deal since Howard Pitler wrote the guide above in 2015. The service is now called X, and many educators have spread their professional networks across more than one platform. The steps Pitler recommends still describe a sensible way for a new teacher to begin: complete a profile that says you work in education, find a chat that fits your subject or role, watch for a while, and then join in with the chat’s hashtag.

This section keeps to what could be checked in two sources: a December 2024 report from Education Week, and a November 29 guide for teachers written by the educator Tony Vincent. Neither is a controlled study of whether chats improve teaching, so both describe a trend.

What the original guide still gets right

Pitler describes three habits that do not depend on any one platform. The first is to follow hashtags for chats that match your interests, from broad ones such as #edchat to narrow ones for a subject, a state or a job role. The second is to read before posting. Pitler calls this lurking and describes it as a perfectly acceptable way to start. The third is to follow other educators, because the value of the network grows with the number of thoughtful people in it.

Anyone using the guide today should check its links before relying on them. The chat calendar and the Edchat archive that Pitler points to were set up for the Twitter of 2015, and the original text contains an incomplete web address for the sign-up step. A current list of chats is easier to find by searching the hashtag for your subject.

What has changed: X and the move to Bluesky

Lauraine Langreo reported for Education Week in its December 2024 article on whether Bluesky is the new Twitter for teachers that many educators who built networks on Twitter for years have been looking for another home. The article says critics point to more bots, weaker moderation and more misinformation on the platform since its 2022 sale. It also says weekly chats in the style of the old Twitter chats are resurfacing on Bluesky.

The article offers a few numbers that help keep the story in proportion. At least 2,700 educators had signed up for Bluesky as of December 17, 2024, according to a shared Google Sheet. That count is a list that educators add themselves to, so it shows interest and not the size of the whole teaching profession on the platform. Bluesky had been invite-only until February 2024 and had 20 million users at the time of the report. Educators told the reporter that Threads never took off with them and that neither Threads nor Mastodon had drawn anything close to Twitter’s attention.

The people quoted are cautious. Eric Curts, a technology-integration specialist in northeast Ohio, said the return of weekly chats shows that “educators are here now.” Jeffrey Carpenter, a professor at Elon University who studies educators’ use of social media, doubted that any platform would recreate the role Twitter played in K-12. Educators told the reporter that they are spreading across platforms and often post to all of their accounts, and Curts built an email list as a backup in case Bluesky does not last. For a teacher choosing where to invest time, that is a useful lesson: keep a way to reach your contacts that does not depend on one company.

Getting started on Bluesky

Tony Vincent’s guide to Bluesky for teachers covers the practical steps and the habits that suit a school audience.

• Create a free account at bsky.app, add a profile description and a picture.
• Posts are limited to 300 characters, and the plus button links several posts into a thread.
• Turn on the setting that requires alt text before posting, found under Settings and then Accessibility, so that images can be read by screen readers.
• Write hashtags in CamelCase, with a capital letter at the start of each word, so that screen readers read them clearly. The main education hashtag is #EduSky.
• Use starter packs, which are shareable lists of accounts that you can follow all at once or one at a time. Vincent names an Education Power Pack by Paul Dietrich and a pack for K-12 instructional coaches by Amie Reed.

Vincent also reports that real-time chats have returned to Bluesky and links to a list of them. Because chat times change, check the schedule on the day before planning around one.

A practical plan for teachers and school leaders

1. Choose one platform to begin with, and add a second only when the first is part of your routine. The reporting above suggests many educators now keep more than one.
2. State in your profile that you work in education, as Pitler advises, so that other educators know whether to follow you back.
3. Follow a starter pack or a chat hashtag for your subject, and read two or three chats before posting.
4. Keep student information out of public posts. For school policies on staff social media, the edCircuit digital citizenship guide is a good place to start.
5. Keep a contact method such as email so that your network survives a change of platform.
6. School leaders who want staff to use chats as professional learning can offer a short time each week for it. The edCircuit professional development guide covers how to fit this alongside other training.

As Pitler explains above, the possibilities for a teacher who joins a network are wide: asking questions of colleagues, getting feedback on a lesson plan, and solving a problem together. Those benefits depend on the people in the network, and in 2026 the people are spread across X, Bluesky and other places.

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