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?