Educators from around the world are enjoying a bit of distraction via Twitter. Thursday night, a few tweets with the hashtag #pencilchat unintentionally grew very quickly into a worldwide opportunity for educators to enjoy light-hearted discussion about how the world would be if the whole of "technology" in education amounted to pencils. John Spencer, author of Pencil Me In: a Journey in the Fight for Graphite, inadvertently started the chat when he was inspired to make a few sarcastic tweets using the #pencilchat hashtag. He writes about the inspiration on his blog entitled Education Rethink.
With posts such as "overheard in hall: I don't know why we have to let them have pencils. All they are going to do with them is cheat" (@eplybon) teachers on Twitter delivered humor to many, while at the same time exposing a somewhat troubling truth - replace the word pencil with the word technology in nearly every tweet, and you would find the result to be comments many in the education technology world have heard from technology nay-sayers about the use of laptops, mobile phones, and other electronic devices in schools.
This chat will likely continue for some time. Search #pencilchat to get caught up and if you have any sharp comments to add to the pencilbox, be sure to use the hashtag for all to enjoy.
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