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Strategies are provided for taking advantage of often under-utilized tools and techniques offered by this online tool for building a professional network.

FaceBook is fun and tweets have a short shelf life. However, for those who are serious about building a professional network, then LinkedIn is the service for managing their career. In today's job market an invitation to "join a professional network" has become obligatory and more useful than swapping business cards or sending out résumés.

A good in-depth article arguing that purposeful networking (easily done w/ web2.0 tools) should be a skill addressed in education.

PBS teachersa is adding social networking and bookmarking tools. You can create a personal profile on pbs teachers connect now. This article talks about it. Still wish we'd call it educational networking or professional networking depending upon what we're doing.

PBS website now uses educational networking tools.

Business people and management should read this article about the transformation of business by using workplace communities. "Workplace communities are designed to solve workplace-related challenges" -- they focus on tasks. I would find it interesting to see a business REALLY use technology to change things. Having the business in a business network (OK a NING) and let people tag their posts with the business related PROBLEMS they are having and blog, video, or photograph it-- the tag cloud would tell the business IMMEDIATELY what the problems are in the company. The problem with this model is that there are few corporate executives who REALLY want to know the problems within their organizations. They don't want to be problem solvers, just opportunity creators. However, when managers open their eyes (and I'm a former General Manager myself) and see that two things give business opportunity: problem solving and innovation. And they are directly related. True innovation solves problems. Read this article and think about how you may solve problems using the networks you may now create. If you don't want everyone to know, keep it private and only allow people in your company in.

Social networking sites are not inherently bad. In fact, they can be quite useful for you to stay in touch with friends and to make new ones. Used wisely, social networking sites do exactly what the name implies - allow you to network with colleagues both personally and professionally. Too many college students and young professionals, however, allow their online profiles to get out of control.

From the site: 1. Teachers now have an unprecedented resource of meaningful science projects to engage their students. 2. Students can work with professional scientists anywhere in the world on real research projects that benefit us all. 3. Students can create their own projects and find collaborators all over the planet. 4. Citizen scientists can find like-minded people to share ideas. 5. Home-schoolers now have a network of science lovers to use as a resource for their children. 6. Professional scientists now have a turn-key solution to promote their research projects, archive their data, find collaborators and reach out to thousands of people they could not reach before.

From the site: 1. Teachers now have an unprecedented resource of meaningful science projects to engage their students. 2. Students can work with professional scientists anywhere in the world on real research projects that benefit us all. 3. Students can create their own projects and find collaborators all over the planet. 4. Citizen scientists can find like-minded people to share ideas. 5. Home-schoolers now have a network of science lovers to use as a resource for their children. 6. Professional scientists now have a turn-key solution to promote their research projects, archive their data, find collaborators and reach out to thousands of people they could not reach before.

Specific recommendations are made for taking steps to building a professional presence by focusing on a member's profile, connections, and website links.

Jeff Utecht: Reach: Building Communities and Networks for Professional Development: downloadable book from Lulu

Is a lack of PD a barrier? Professional development is a barrier, although I think they can teach themselves much of what teachers need to be learning to be able to modernise their classrooms. The worst thing a teacher can say is: "who's going to teach me how to do that?" Teachers are teachers and should be able to teach themselves what they need to know. If they can't then they probably shouldn't be teaching. You want a teacher who can keep up. There are networks of other educators out there that can connect you with new skills. Professional development doesn't have to be something that is done to teachers - it can be just ongoing conversations they're having with other professionals that they're learning from every day.

Researchers asked two main questions to understand how to better support professional networking on Teachers' Domain: 1. How do teachers use social media tools in professional contexts, and for what purposes? 2. How are teachers likely to use social media tools in the near future?

Creating a lifelong learning network is essential for adults who pursue continuing education as means to advance their professional career or improve their personal life. Regardless of the reason for continuing one's education, an adult's knowledge needs to continually grow. The changing nature of today's society demands the necessity for gaining new skills, new understandings, and new intellectual orientations throughout a person's life.

Microsoft has announced an initiative as part of the ConnectED movement in the US. Here are the details: "Windows 8.1 Pro Operating System: One of the most powerful and flexible operating systems for education, it provides the ability for students and teachers to use education apps and Microsoft Office, search for information across their device and the web, and is optimized for touch, education apps, research, productivity and digital inking, critical keys to better learning outcomes. Office 365 Education Communication and Collaboration Tool: Email, sites, online and offline document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing capabilities for all you students for free. Plus 5 copies of Office for free for more than 12 million students at qualified institutions. Partners in Learning Network Teacher Training and Resources: Partners in Learning provides educators with a network of nearly 1 million educators from 136 countries. It offers them a forum where they can share ideas, find free lesson plans to inspire classroom learning and develop professionally. Bing for Schools Ad-free search: An ad-free digital literacy platform aimed at helping students learn important digital skills based on access to a connected computing device, daily common-core aligned lesson plans, and a safe, private environment where search history will not be mined for data. Student training and resources: Microsoft IT Academy: For roughly 2,000 high-needs schools, Microsoft is providing academic institutions and their educators, students, and staff with digital curriculum and certification for fundamental technology skills. Affordable Broadband from EveryoneOn: A critical component to connected learning, Microsoft's non-profit partner EveryoneOn is offering home Internet service for as low $10 to the 36 million Americans living in low-income communities."

How to build professional, personal, social, and lifelong learning networks is the focal point of this post.

TechConnect is a peer networking community for Education Information Technology (IT) Professionals. Members log on to exchange knowledge, ask questions, and share experiences with other Education Information Technology peers. Connect to colleagues, create interest groups, and access member-only resources. The TechConnect community is developed and focused specifically for Education Information Technology Professionals (private school as well as public school) and is only offered to those users.

This is an interesting article from the Guardian's teacher network about running an independent newspaper using a Grammar school as a case study. I thought this quote is telling: "The key to the success of the newspaper is to establish a trust relationship with the students involved so that they know the boundaries of their independence and know where their responsibilities lie. The editorial team is appointed and led by the editor in chief, a student selected by an interview with me and the outgoing editor."

Before you write off Twitter as just the latest social media "fad," take a look at how some clever educators are using it to enrich their classrooms and even forge informal professional networks.

"When you have a specific interest, it can be difficult to learn more about it from people in your immediate circle of influence. Teaching is broad and we all have that one area we love just a little more than the others. This is why I sought out to understand more about Professional Learning Networks (PLN) and their value to teachers. I am often trying to persuade my peers to get online so they can reap the benefits that I am."

The key to Twitter is to see it as our own Personal Learning Network (PLN). Everyone has the right to use it how they want. If someone doesn't like how you use twitter than they can just go ahead and unfollow. Really it's no different from writing a blog. Similar etiquete but you are more likely to share the mundane in twitter. Twitter is also more like f2f conversations - if all you do is post links or ask for help you will never make the connections that make people want to conenct with you.