Twitter/TweetDeck

Twitter  Yes, Twitter.  Believe it or not, this is the tool that is going to connect you to other like-minded educators more than all of the other tools put together. . .assuming you use it correctly. Having a rich Twitter network will really help you not only connect to other educators with like interests, it can feed you a continuous, relevant stream of information around topics that interest you.

This link is to a page that has tutorials for both Twitter and Tweetdeck.  The videos were created by David Wees.  After watching these, it seemed silly to create my own.
Eight Videos to help teachers get started with Twitter.

Tweetdeck This is a social network personal browser to keep you connected to many of your social networks.  We will primarily use it to organize your Twitter account into areas of interest, which appear as columns in Tweetdeck.  Since Twitter purchased TweetDeck, they have changed the TweetDeck interface because they do not want to use Adobe Air, which the old TweetDeck used.  The advantage is that it now works in your browser and on your mobile technology.  The disadvantage is that it doesn't have the same functionality as the older version.  
Eight Videos to help teachers get started with Twitter.

Some other social network browsers:  Bottlenose, TweetChat (works great for educational chats), Hootsuite, and you could even use Twitter itself, but there are limits to your ability to view content separated by hashtags.

Educational Chats  These are chats that occur on Twitter at a specific date and time guided by a topic which is usually voted on by Twitter users.  These are great ways to network with other educators online and to discuss/debate relevant educational topics.  Each of the chats has its own specific hashtag, or keyword, preceded by the pound symbol.  For example, #edchat is the most popular education hashtag on Twitter.  It is not only used to share infomation 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but there is also a specific chat every Tuesday at 9am and 4pm PST.  Some other chats are much more subject/grade level specific, such as #mathchat, #elemchat, and #ntchat (new teacher chat).  See some of the articles below for more information about the Twitter chats, hashtags, and their use in education.  It is a good habit to participate in at least one educational chat per week.

Top Twitter Hashtags for Teacher from the Creative Education Blog

Education hashtags from Cybraryman

Edudemic's "The A-Z Dictionary of Twitter Hashtags"

100 Ways to Use Twitter in Education (be degree of difficulty) from Edudemic

Twitter Hashtags in the Classroom by George Couros