How long have you been on Twitter? The answer to that very may well dictate how often you chime in on Twitter chats. Kory Graham brought this to my attention a couple of weeks ago. I have noticed that I simply don’t participate in a lot of Twitter chats anymore. I have also noticed that many people who I used to interact with in various Twitter chats have gone silent. Why is that?

The first reason may be simply that the novelty of Twitter chats may wear off with time. If we combine this with the creation of a Twitter chat every 20 seconds it’s easy to see how people can get bored. All people like novelty. This is why we can’t present the same things to our students the same way every day.

Another reason people may fade from Twitter chats is that the content gets old quickly. How many different questions can you ask before you start repeating themes? I don’t want to answer for the 40th time why I should be connected to a group of connected educators. I jokingly told Kory that I would make up 5-10 canned responses to questions and be able to use them in about 90% of the chats. Some of these answers are: growth mindset, student voice, student choice, autonomy, create a PLN and so on. You get the idea. We see the same questions regurgitated over and over again.

Voxer has killed the Twitter chat for me. Voxer allows me to engage with people on a much deeper level than Twitter. How can I be challenged or challenge someone in 140 characters or less? Hey let’s talk about racism, politics, gun laws, pedagogy or any other hot button issue in tiny sound bites. It just doesn’t work well for me. I am a co-moderator of the #satchat Voxer group. This group posts a question a day. I enjoy that format much better than a jam packed hour of craziness on a Saturday morning.

I am not saying that every Twitter chat is brutally boring and repetitive. Just most of them. #totallyRossome and #Weirded still capture my attention. Just take a look at your Twitter journey. Do you still participate in chats?

Q1: Do you participate in Twitter chats? Why?

Q2: Has your participation of Twitter chats increased or decreased in the past 6 months? Why?

Q3: What makes a great Twitter chat?

Q4: What is the limitation or negatives of a Twitter chat?

Q5: What are your favorite Twitter chats?