Deputy Grocott on Edutwitter, children’s books and Edutwitter Cooks

12 Jul Deputy Grocott on Edutwitter, children’s books and Edutwitter Cooks

The education community on Twitter is incredibly vibrant and supportive. Deputy Grocott, founder of #FFBWednesday and @challenge_maths, wrote a blog for us on his healthy Twitter obsession and the Edutwitter cookbook (check out our recipe for chocolate cake, enjoy with a good book!). Over to you Mr G: 

Hello! I’ve been asked to write a short piece about why I think Edutwitter is an important community. Wow! A biggie! Where do I start with this one?! I’ll start with how I began my Edutwitter journey a couple of years ago. For me, it started with questions. Questions I wanted answers to from people with different perspectives and experiences. Questions which may not have been easy to answer by people in my own setting. So I decided to create a Twitter account in the hope that maybe a few people might be kind enough to answer. And they did. That’s when the bug started and now I guess I have a bit of a healthy addiction to it!

I love the fact that if I have a question or a pondering and I can put it across in 120 characters then people will answer and help and support! Support has been the best part of Edutwitter for me. People supporting me and me being able to support others. It’s such a positive community where so many people with so many different experiences and expertise are all helping each other out. Yes, there are the odd rogue thread or comment but it’s easy to stay away from them or mute those conversations and stick with the positive edupeeps! Don’t get drawn into negativity on Edutwitter is a top tip of mine. It’s easy to misread a tweet or take the written word in the wrong way, so best to remain as positive as possible in my opinion!

Now let me change my focus a bit onto reading and the benefits of Edutwitter. I’ve noticed in recent months lots of edupeeps promoting children’s books or reviewing children’s books. Ashley Booth, for example, is the master of all things ‘children’s reading’. I absolutely love looking at book recommendations by people and look to get those books into the hands of our children as soon as I can. Our school library is now packed with books recommended on Edutwitter. Once again, I trust the expertise of people on Edutwitter so it’s a no brainer when buying books recommended on there!

A final word on the positivity of Edutwitter (and a kind of reading link!). Those who follow me will know that I am obsessed with food and cooking and recently I reached out to Edutwitter for recipes as I’m always looking to cook new things. I was inundated with recipe ideas so decided to organise them into a ‘book’ which I have titled Edutwitter Cooks. It’s got loads of amazing recipes in it and I absolutely loved putting it together. I’m happily sending it to people for free! If you’d like a copy then please DM me! One final, final word on Edutwitter. If you’re toying with the idea of creating a twitter account I would say ‘go for it!’. Edutwitter is such an amazing place and for me, it’s the best free CPD out there!

Follow Deputy Grocott on Twitter at @deputygrocott