I’m going to lie to you.

I have one question. When do they sleep? You know who. The people who are able to always  post something on Twitter, that is relevant to our professional practice, at all hours of the day. Yes, I’m talking about; Steve W. Anderson, the Couros brothers (Alec and George), Jackie Gerstein, Angela Maiers, Bill Ferriter, David Didau, Shelly S Terrell, Heidi Siwak and Sean Junkins.

Collectively, upto the time this was posted these 10 have Tweeted over 445,000 messages. So I ask, when do they sleep?  When do the devices that so effectively fill my home page get put on the night stand? With this collective of contributors, my intellectual fire is perma-stoked. How could there be anything to add? Yet, as I have learned: there is more, and they have even prepared a place for noobs like me at the T(w)able. To which I say thank you and I told you I would lie. I have more than one question.

One particularly interesting evening, the Twitter traffic really seemed to be originating only from brothers Alec and George Couros. To which I wrote, “Is it dueling Couros’ tonight?”  The response came without hesitation from Alec and soon seconded by George, “We work hard so you don’t have to!”

Despite never sleeping the 160 or so Tweeps I follow seem to evince a conspicuous absence of ego. It seems to have been checked at the browser door. In a flash it all became clear. It’s not needed. Note to self…

Note #1 Leave your ego behind. You are not the only expert. We all have something to learn from each other. There seems to exist a genuine caring in the Twitterverse for those who are of like minds. If you respond to someone, they may respond to you.

Note #2 Get involved in #hashtag discussions. They really help you find like minded people who share your passion(s). In my case this warps to education, philosophy and random quirky things. Share what you’ve learned with your local PLN offline too.

Note #3 Ask questions. We ask our students all the time to inquire, yet we are supposed to magically have all the answers.
The more we inquire in our network, the broader the resource base we get to develop, and then improve upon. Share this.

Note #4 Get involved in #etmooc. I am not the first to extol the benefits of belonging to @etmooc. If you are a constant learner(See my post on Jan. 1, 2013). I can only say, join now.

So I followed the above notes, but what I wasn’t immediately prepared to accept was that their exists a role for me too. 

500 plus Tweets and more to come. Does that mean I don’t get to sleep anymore?