#OKLAED
Preserving Our History: A Look Back at the #Oklaed Twitter Chats
From 2014 to 2020, my Sunday evening routine revolved around a singular, powerful ritual: chatting with fellow educators from around the state and then archiving the weekly Twitter chat. Every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Central Time, educators from every corner of Oklahoma—and beyond—would log on, completely transforming a social media platform into a vibrant, virtual staff room. Though these chats have since come to an end, the archive stands as a testament to a historic era of grassroots teacher collaboration.
A Grassroots Network for Professional Growth
The history of #Oklaed chats is a story of community-driven professional development. Organized by dedicated educators like Anne Beck and Kevin Hime, the chat flourished by empowering the community itself. Anyone with a passion for a specific educational topic could volunteer to grab the digital microphone and moderate a chat. Over the six years I tracked and preserved these conversations, the subjects evolved alongside the changing landscape of education. We crowd-sourced solutions for everyday classroom management, broke down shifting state standards, and dissected complex legislative updates and budget crises affecting our schools in real time.
Breaking Isolation and Democratizing Education
Looking back, the true importance of the #Oklaed chats lay in how they shattered the isolation so often felt in the teaching profession. For an hour every week, geography didn't matter. A first-year teacher in a rural town could seamlessly exchange ideas, lesson plans, and words of encouragement with a veteran educator in a major urban district or a university professor. It democratized professional growth, giving every participant an equal voice and a supportive network.
Six Years of Collaboration: The Complete Timeline
Below is the year-by-year chronological breakdown of the resources, topics, and dialogues we built together during this incredible six-year run.
2014: Laying the Foundation
In one of the foundational years of the chat, our community focused heavily on establishing strong roots for classroom success and teacher leadership. The earliest archives capture vital, practical dialogues centered on classroom management strategies, navigating educational news, and empowering educators to see themselves as leaders both inside and outside their school buildings.
2015: Growing the Network
By 2015, the #Oklaed chat had truly flourished into a resource-rich environment. Our discussions expanded to cover broader societal and professional landscapes. Key archives from this year highlight deep dives into international literacy, cultural diversity in the classroom, 21st-century teaching and learning frameworks, and our first major structured discussions regarding state legislative advocacy.
2016: Mentorship and New Standards
In 2016, collaboration became our primary vehicle for future planning. A significant focus of this year's archive was meaningful mentoring for early-career teachers and finding collaborative solutions to systemic teaching challenges. This year also marked a massive practical milestone as we used the chat format to digest, unpack, and share resources for the newly introduced Oklahoma Academic Standards for Mathematics (#OKMath).
2017: Understanding the Whole Child
The archives from 2017 reveal a community leaning deeply into student-centered empathy and support services. We dedicated significant time to exploring student behavior by looking at "the stories behind them" rather than just the actions themselves. Additionally, we rallied around the critical importance of school libraries and explored the intersection of entrepreneurship and education.
2018: Mindfulness and Everyday Advocacy
As public education faced mounting external pressures in 2018, our weekly chats shifted toward resilience, institutional culture, and systemic change. The archives highlight a strong focus on implementing mindfulness in schools to combat burnout, fostering school connectedness, and supporting innovative teaching practices. This was also a monumental year for everyday legislative advocacy and tracking policy updates.
2019: Specialized Support and Safety
In the final full year before global disruption, the 2019 archives reflect a deeply responsive community tackling specialized educational needs. We focused heavily on how to best utilize school counselors, understanding and addressing dyslexia in education, and building authentic, positive relationships with our students. Discussions also critically addressed timely concerns surrounding school safety and security.
2020: An Indispensable Pandemic Lifeline
When the COVID-19 pandemic upended our world in 2020, the chat became an essential survival tool. As schools pivoted overnight, our Sunday night community shifted to navigating unprecedented uncertainty together. The final year of the archive tracks real-time crowd-sourcing for remote learning plans, virtual and blended learning management systems (LMS), the logistics of safely reopening schools, and maintaining mental health support for both teachers and students. It also served as a space for critical dialogues on systemic equity and responding to racial tensions in America.