My Personal Network of Learning

You will remember that over the past few months I've been learning about Social Learning. Within that I've discovered Personal Knowledge Management or Network Learning. Harold Jarche has written extensively on this idea and has become one of my mentors on this journey (although he doesn't know it).


Harold has shown me that I've been developing my own network of learning without knowing that that's what I was doing and I expect you, my dear readers, have been doing the same.


Harold talks about using social media and social learning to do three things: Seek, Sense and Share. This is how I understand what he writes.


Seek: this is where I look for others in my industry who are thinking, writing and discussing the various issues, ideas that I'm thinking about. Thus, tools such as RSS feeds, social bookmarking are very handy. In my case, I've been using Google Reader to access information and discussions on elearning, freelancing, small business, writing and social learning. At present I subscribe to 33 RSS feeds and right now I have over 400 unread items which tells me that I've not kept up with the feeds or it could be that I need to re-examine the feeds I subscribe to and ditch those that are not serving my personal learning.


Sense: is where I make sense of what I've been reading. There are a number of ways that this can be done. Blogging, discussion through Groups on LinkedIn, commenting on other writers/thinkers who are talking about my various reading. I have a blog : workplace learning & development which has been very useful in helping me understand my reading and to share with my readers. Groups on LinkedIn have also been a great source of discussion, especially when others think differently and offer another perspective I may not have thought of otherwise. 


Share: is where I can share my thoughts, opinions (tentative - always open to change) and ideas with those in my networks on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+. I really like Harold's idea of sharing the various blogs, comments and discussions that come my way on my blog, that is collating what I've read over a week and then offering my own assessment or opinion on each.


Wonderful stuff. Click here to view Harold's perspective on Personal Knowledge Management.


What I would like to know from you, dear reader, is what do you do to keep up to date or Seek information in your area of expertise? How do you Sense the information that comes your way? What makes you Share any blog, article or comments with others?

How LinkedIn can Help Your Business ...

By the way, have you wondered how LinkedIn can help your business? Thanks to Jennifer Bishop a member of How to make social media work for you (managed my Leila Henderson) I read this and I am excited at how useful this information is for my business.


The stand-out for me was how Groups have been a wonderful source of discussion, learning, connecting and sharing.


Do you feel the same? Do you think you'll do anything with this information? Let me know in the comments - I'll respond.

Twitter ... why tweet?

I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the converted but I can't believe it took me so long to join the conversation. I've known of twitter probably since it began but until now didn't see how useful it could be. Since joining, my personal learning network and my personal knowledge management has expanded.

I joined twitter, not because I had been persuaded it was a wonderful tool for short, witty conversation, sharing links and videos or keeping up with the latest news but because I saw that most of the people I follow on Facebook, Google Reader and Blogs had twitter accounts. I suddenly felt I was missing something.

Now I'm addicted. At present I have 37 followers (this is more than any other social media I'm involved with and I'm quite impressed) and I follow 81 tweeters. Those I follow fall into 3-4 broad categories: News; Australian politics; Social Learning (e-learning, informal learning, workplace learning); Climate Change; and some well known Australian/American/English identities.

The big thing about twitter is that your tweets are restricted to 140 characters. Surprisingly 140 characters is quite a bit of text:

Though users can answer the prompt, “What are you doing?”, tweets have evolved to more than everyday experiences, where links are shared

The above represents 139 characters, so your tweets can make sense, be very witty and clever. The core premise of twitter is responding to: "what are you doing?" as indicated above but tweets have become so much more than that. Have you seen tiny urls? they came about because of twitter's restriction to 140 characters, so now most links shared on twitter is shortened to enable understandable text with the link.

It's easy to sign-up, go to twitter.com click sign-up and follow the prompts. During the sign-up process you will be asked to follow suggested tweeters (up to five) - I found this a bit annoying and didn't realise I could skip this. On the other hand when the process finished I was receiving tweets which was quite rewarding. Also, you can adjust who you follow later. I've found a short video that takes you through the sign-up process.

Mashable.com has put together a Twitter Guide which covers all things twitter such as, how to retweet, what hashtags are for, favourites and so much more.

I found this article provides insight into: why twitter? Essentially, tweeters like how twitter ignores barriers of class, age and locale, the 140 character restriction which means more thought is put into each tweet.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest where does twitter fit into social learning? For me, twitter has broadened the reach of my personal learning network (PLN). A PLN is a great way to connect with people in your area of work, to learn what they're doing/thinking and to contribute your thoughts. A wonderful form of social learning.

And to quote from one of my PLN mentors/coaches: "Twitter is a wonderful tool for sharing quick ideas, links and articles. It offers the user access to industry experts, authors, like-minded practitioners, fellow hobbyists and yes, celebrities. ... A great place to find help or advice" Jane Bozarth Social Media for Trainers.



If you do take the plunge, find me @anniemonline.

How many Social Networks is enough? & which one to use?

19/4/2012 Update: Mashable have a link to a wonderful infographic on which social network should you use? Covers Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+.

So, now I need to decide which social network to use for which purpose. I've been finding lately that I want to move away from Facebook as a business tool. I'm preferring Facebook for personal use although I do have a Facebook page (Office Administration Worker - used primarily for training and assessment of business administration trainees); Twitter and LinkedIn have been fantastic sources professional development, connecting with experts in my fields of interest.

What's your favoured social network and why?


7/4/2012
I just read that Pinterest is now the No. 3 Social Network in the US behind Facebook and Twitter. This caused me to wonder how many social networks do we need or want to use?

Currently I use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Picasa, Flickr, Delicious, Blogger, WordPress, Social Learning Centre, Mighty Bell and LinkedIn. I'm not necessarily a regular on all of these networks but I am an everyday user of Facebook, Blogger and Twitter.

I found this website: Entrepreneur which doesn't provide a definitive answer. It does say that managing your social networks is key. So depending on what, where, when, how and why will see one using some social networks over others.

I also found on Wikipedia a list of social networks - a bit mind boggling

Just counted: 11 social networks ....

One thing I'm good at ...

I've just joined Mighty Bell and have joined the Teacher 2.0 community. In doing so there are a number of exercises I've been asked to complete.

1) write down at least one thing that you are good at, that is, a talent that you have.


Now this gives me pause ... what am I good at? 


I'm good at teaching people how to use computer software (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, Internet Browsers - IE, Google - and become comfortable with the computer), social media (Facebook in particular, Skype, Google+, Twitter). I get such a buzz from seeing people gain confidence in using a computer and using it for their purposes.


2) write down something(s) you love doing or something(s) you love learning about.


I love writing and with Blogs I've taken to writing to three of them! Recently I decided to re-learn how to crochet and went off to an evening session which I enjoyed tremendously.

My first effort! I kept losing stitches which as a knitter from way back was quite distressing. I turns out I was reading the pattern incorrectly.


3) Think about or write down how the Internet has impacted your own personal learning.


The Internet is such a vast place. I've been using the Internet since 1994 and have watched how it has changed over that time. Until Web2.0 came about I found it not much different from searching my folders on the computer. Now I've taken to using Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Gmail, Google Reader, Google+ all of which have impacted on my learning. I discovered people discussing the change to 'social learning' and how that will change how learning and development is delivered in the workplace - my area of interest. This has been quite recent and has provided me with lots of food for thought with regard to my own approach to learning and development.


4) Understanding the Personal Web Presence


Here I'm learning about managing my online presence. An example can be found here.


More food for thought. Maybe I should put more pages on my workplace learning & development blog ... 


5) Building my own Personal Web Presence


Using this blog I'll be adding and re-working this site.


Stay tuned!

Social learning in action

I stumbled upon this very interesting video on how a student uses social media tools to put together class work.

You can read more here.

Have you seen this in your work experience? If so, what did you think?

Life long learning ... MOOCs

I've been reading of MOOC in various places I visit on the Internet and today I've found out what MOOC is:

Massive Open Online Course

I can't remember where I first saw it but today I found it here. It started with me looking at e-portfolios and clicking on a link to:

Participate in the Preparing to be a self-directed learner experience

Well, this has opened up possibilities, especially since I've been looking at how social media can be used for workplace learning. I love that Stephen Downes explains how to start through the use of such tools as blogs, twitter, de.licio.us, facebook. Some of these I'm already using for thinking about what I've been learning (blog) and sharing this plus links on twitter and facebook.

Now de.licio.us helps you find cool stuff and collect it for easy sharing. Dig into stacks created by the community, and then build your own!

I love that this also ties in with life-long learning and self-directed learning. I am a self-directed learner. I enjoy how I can be wrapped up in one area of learning and then discover another area worth pursuing.

Links I found from MightyBell: 


Ken Masters: A brief guide


Stephen Downes on MOOCs ... treat learning as the formation of connections 


Self-Directed Learning: This site supports teaching self-directed learning (SDL) and becoming a self-directed person.


Now I'm off to build my cool stuff on delicious!