That’s what I said to a friend who had just told me they had two accounts on Twitter.  But how? Why?  And why again?  I was puzzled and at that point, not even on Twitter, considering it a fool-hearty thing to do.

 

Fast forward a couple of years, and what was I doing?  That same fool-hearty activity of creating my second Twitter account. I’ve worked hard to keep my first account, AnIowaTeacher, relatively tidy.  Nothing too out there, but plenty of teachers, coaches, and gardeners, all of whom I find fascinating both personally and professionally.  However, about three weeks ago, at the end of our basketball season, I mentioned that I used Twitter to my team as we finishing up our season.  I get home that night, and I have 12 new follows, all of jr. high aged kids. Dangit all!

 

So I asked a couple of friends online what did they do when their students followed them, and much to my surprise, almost all of them said “follow them back!”  Really?  I thought this was a no-no in the educational world?  But again, almost all laid out their own ground rules.  Those rules including no private messages, respectable/readable messages, and no going looking for trouble on my own part.  Hmmmm…these seems reasonable, but I still didn’t know about giving unfettered access to these kids.  Thus the creation of AnIowaCoach.

 

With this new account, I’ve pointed a lot of these kids towards there, and about six have followed, and I have followed back.  To be honest, this new account is quite freeing.  I feel, with the practice that I have with my first account, it’s much easier to me to find those who I want to follow.  I have the tools to really craft this account into something that I want, dealing with basketball, coaching, positive/inspirational quotes, and keeping thing very low key.  I’m still unease about students following my account, but by following this one, I’m not very run with too many tweets, and I can interact with these kids on a totally different way.

 

Would I recommend this?  After these last three weeks where I can bop onto my “AnIowaCoach” account, grab some quote, hang out with the coaches/students, then come back to a more professional account, I’d reply yes, it’s certainly worth a try!  While not every situation is the same, I can say this works just fine for me! 🙂