It has been happening for months. Teachers have left Twitter en-masse when Elon Musk took over. I am in an Edumatch group (led by Sarah Thomas) and there were several dozen posts about creating a fresh start on Mastodon: touting a decentralized social media platform. Frankly, at the time, I did not have the brain capacity to explore something new. Twitter felt different, and I was unhappy with my feed and the algorithm which was obviously at play. I was also not pleased with Musk’s antics, but this past year felt like one of the busiest and hardest of my teaching career. So needless to say, I did not explore a new platform and didn’t really post very much to Twitter (although the one day I did, I got an error message saying I was temporarily suspended!)
A few days ago, Alice Keeler sent me an invitation to an app called, Blue Sky social. Now, on Summer holidays, I figured I would give it a try. It reminds me of Twitter, circa 2011 when I first joined. The platform is very similar to Twitter itself since it is created by some of the original Twitter creators. At this time, Bitmojis and GIFs aren’t available yet, but they are working of adding elements to it every day. What I like about the platform is the already well-established #EDUsky hashtag and feed which allows you to see all of the posts with that hashtag in real time. I also like that I can create lists (similar to the Twitter lists I have been using for years). At this time, the biggest drawback is that it is in BETA and you need to be invited (although Alice assured me that they are working on getting it to be more open very soon). Learn more about Blue Sky and how to become part of the EDUsky community in Alice Keeler’s post here.
BlueSky states the following in a July 5th post (thanks for the tag, Alice):
Bluesky is a public benefit corp with the mission “to develop and drive large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralized public conversation.”
The PBC status allows us to pursue our mission above profit, but we still need to make this open ecosystem sustainable.
And then I heard a few educators talked about Threads; Instagram’s Twitter alternative, so I jumped on it to check it out. (gotta love summer holidays). Getting on was extremely simple because it allowed me to import all of my information from Instagram. Because I use Twitter mostly for educational purposes, when prompted to import my entire contact list, I did not; opting for educators only. If you follow your entire IG feed, you may not get the educator experience since as of right now, searching a hashtag will lead you to follow educators (which may eventually end up on your feed) and your feed may have a variety of posts IG thinks you will find interesting. As of right now, I have not been able to see only educators on my feed which is a little frustrating. My friend Ilene Winokur warned that if you delete your Threads profile, you will also delete your Instagram account which is important to note! She also shared that it is not available in Europe yet. Learn more about Threads here.
*Update! Threads now has the ability to search hashtags!
I created this DRAFT comparison which I think will change dramatically in the coming weeks but may be useful if you are considering jumping into something new.
This article shares a few other alternatives in case you are interested in exploring, although all of this can feel a little confounding! This tweet by Donnie Piercey made me smile.
with 5000 new twitter replacement apps launching daily, come join me in an aol chatroom instead. hit me up at sgtpepperD. pic.twitter.com/3QuF3a0gxh
— donnie piercey ⚾ (@mrpiercEy) July 6, 2023
I think Holly Clarke says it best in this post on Threads.
Teaching is HARD. Having a supportive and collaborative educational community on Twitter was life altering for me back in 2011 when I joined and for so many years continued to be a constant for me in terms of learning and growing my PLN. For many years, my most shared blogpost, was Twitter: Getting Connected. I think many of us just want that community back. Having said that, although I am really excited to see where each of these platforms goes in the coming months, you will also forgive me if I spend most of my time getting the most out of summer: down time, outdoor time, self-care, reading time, family time, and fostering in-person connections as often as I can.
P.S. Ironically, my blogs no longer share to Twitter automatically. Sigh.