We’re again joined by Annick Rauch, who previously discussed the importance of emotional intelligence in education. Annick is a first grade French immersion teacher at the Ecole Sage Creek School in Manitoba, Canada. Annick operates a blog focused on growth mindset, motivation, passion, and more at annickrauch.ca and shares her thoughts on Twitter @AnnickRauch.

Today we're talking practical social media - using Twitter and blogging to expand one's (and other's) practice. We share a variety of tools including:

• Tweetdeck: A way to organize hashtags, schedule Tweets, and simply just organize your feed.
• Participate: A center for educational Twitter chats to see a schedule, questions, and answers.
• Medium: A free blogging social media platform.

We highlight the importance of sharing what you're doing and writing about it. After all, the cornerstone of experiential learning, as presented by John Dewey, is reflection. Until we reflect on the experiences that we've had, we don't truly comprehend what we've learned and could possibly not take away anything at all.

In addition, we recommend taking these steps to grow your social media practice:

• Start a school hashtag and/or account where teachers Tweet what is going on in their classrooms to share to the world.
• Join a Twitter chat as an educator and participate.
• Start a Blog of your thoughts (perhaps on Medium)