I love twitter!

I have been using Twitter about two years, but it's really been in about the past year or so that it's grown to be one of my biggest sources of professional development.  I've discovered YA authors who will answer questions posed in tweets, leaders in my field who tweet their latest thinking, and friends to bounce ideas off of and to share the ups and downs of life with.

With Teri at NCTE

Last November, I went to NCTE in Orlando.  I was sitting in a meeting room eating a snack, waiting for the first session to begin when I heard an enthusiastic "Mindi!"  Turns out it was Teri Lesesne, aka @ProfessorNana on twitter, and when I asked her how she knew it was me, she said, "You look just like your twitter picture!"  I ended up spending most of my weekend with various people I knew from my interactions with them on Twitter, and that helped make my conference experience even better.

Yesterday, I got to spend the entire day with Donalyn Miller (The BookWhisperer!  find her on twitter as @donalynbooks) at the Illinois Reading Council Conference.  As we sat over dinner with another twitter friend (@katsok) and four of my colleagues, we talked about books and teaching and family and books and travel and food and books and wine.... well, you get the picture.  I thought about how even though I've met Donalyn in person just twice in my life, in some ways I knew her better than the people I work with every day.

Twitter is terrific!