#TeacherFriends Twitter Chat on Parent Involvement! 9 PM EST!

TUESDAY! TWITTER CHAT! #TEACHERFRIENDS

What started out very 'organically' last summer, as my effort to help some of my teaching friends to make the leap to Twitter has evolved into something completely unexpected in the process. We really are making new Teacher Friendships! People that we connect with from week to week, really do enrich our lives!!! 

There's the tweep that encourages me on Fitbit -- to get up and moving. There's the tweep that ordered wobble chairs for her classroom, to support our family in this current chapter of turmoil. There's the tweep that ReTweets my blog articles. There's the tweep that is working diligently to get me to her school! There's the tweep that had me connect with her school via SKYPE as an author-illustrator! You get the idea. 

That's not even a glimmer of the tweeps that share brilliant articles, information, technology insight, and support of their peers (and of me!) Wow. This little hair-brained idea of mine just grows and grows. We have had AM!A!ZING! #GuestEduCelebrity tweeps from week to week! Our upcoming schedule is filled with awesomeness! And INCREDIBLE prizes, too! 

I would be delirious, if I didn't tell you that it takes an incredible amount of work to pull it off week to week. But I'm so grateful to have my other three #TeacherFriends acting as hostess and muscles! It takes a village. Maggie, Kristin and Kim are hard at work in the background making it all happen! 

This week we are going to focus on Parent Involvement! We have the organization "SimplyCircle" in our spotlight. They have a whole new way to organize your classroom, or your grade level! {OR your extended family!!!} Teachers will be asked for their favorite means to encourage parent support, communication and participation. Can't wait to hear from our veteran-teachers and our young college students alike. Tonight promises to be VERY insightful. {Just like EVERY week!} 

Tonight we're doing something a little different in our prize package. SimplyCircle will give a $10 Amazon coupon to EVERYone that starts a new circle of communication! Just for giving it a try! There will be a special tweet with the instructions of how to claim! 

Plus there will be a LOT of digital prizes from our fab four! 

I use the free site "TweetDeck" so that I can 'see' all of the columns that help me stay organized and focused in our machine-gun fast chat. I open one column for the chat, another for my direct notifications and a third for direct messages. Shazam. My fingers, eyes and brain are beginning to be able to process all of that information, but I still 'surf' the chat, back and forth, and am typically at least a few minutes behind. The more I 'stop' to welcome newbies, the further behind I get..... but I'm used to that by now. LOL. 

P.S. If you are reading here in real time, I still have a HUGE opportunity for some lucky reader to win a $350 registration for this summer's FrogStreet SPLASH conference in Texas! Go back to my article from earlier this week to get entered! HURRY! There's not a lot of time left.