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****This post by Derek J. Keenan explains his Social Professional Learning Model that served as his Masters Capstone paper at Alberta University, April 23, 2012. Its core is an action research approach to learning enriched by and anchored in social media. Substitute teacher with "other named professional" and it works for people in all types of work/interests. There is also a short (s cultivating connections with the people who have the same self-directed learning quest as you. The next step is reciprocating by publishing and sharing what you know or believe to be true. Throughout it is your experience that informs your participation and your participation informs your level of understanding--you are constantly learning and eventually building your personal learning network relationships to be there for you.

Jarche blogs on Models, flows, and exposure, April 27, 2012. Please scroll down to the bottom to see Doonesbury cartoon that challenges the benefits of "exposure" for doing unpaid work.

#change11, blog post by Bon Stewart, May 2, 2012 And here's the rub... "The original MOOCs - the connectivist MOOCs a la Siemens & Downes, and the work of David Wiley and Alec Couros and others - have been, for the most part, about harnessing the capacity of participatory media to connect people and ideas. They've been built around lateral, distributed structures, encouraging blog posts and extensive peer-to-peer discussion formats. Even in live sessions showcasing facilitator's expertise, these ur-MOOCs have tended towards lively backchannel chats, exploring participants' knowledge and experiences and ideas. They've been, in short, actively modelled on the Internet itself. They've been experiential and user-driven. Their openness hasn't stopped at registration capacity, but extended to curricular tangents and participatory contributions and above all, to connections: they've given learners not just access to information but to networks. They've been messy, sometimes, but they have definitely not been business as usual. The problem with EdX is that, scale and cost aside, it IS essentially a traditional learning model revamped for a new business era. It puts decision-making power, agency, and the right to determine what counts as knowledge pretty much straight back into the hands of gatekeeping institutions."

An interesting website that offers eCoach services to help someone become an online facilitator of professional learning communities. Scroll down to see promise of stimulus funds for eCoach certification.

Blog by Penny Scott at Info Career Trends website, 5/4/2009 See excerpt on five year goals and being proactive in PD and career development. When I began my current position at the University of San Francisco in 2003, I knew that five years down the road I would need to apply for a promotion. This involved showing my professional development and service by creating a promotion binder that traced my career development - and seemed a daunting task to my new librarian's eyes, because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find enough professional opportunities with which to fill my binder. I've found, though, that the promotion process is a model for the art of being proactive about career development, both in thought and in deed. Being proactive requires an active, open, seeking attitude, as well as reliable, high-quality action. This combination is very powerful, and can help you get beyond the constraints of time, funding, geography, or your current job description - giving you a career path of which to be proud."

Premise(?) for WL Learning Studio from Harold Harche's blog, February 23, 2012 Excerpts: "Those specialized departments of the 20th century need to engage in social learning, by modelling behaviour and continuously developing next practices to adapt to changing conditions. This is the challenge to remain relevant in the 21st century workplace. Learn or die." "This isn't the Information Age, it's the Learning Age; and the quicker people get their heads around that, the better - Prof Stephen Heppell" "It boils down to the fact that in the network era, value is derived from workforce collaboration, where you are either contributing to the network, or you are no longer required."

Colorful, informative graphical mindmap by Jane Genovese at Learning FUNdamentals in Australia for high school students on how to focus in the age of distraction. The branches include taking time to reflect and review, creating rituals/habits, how to work; managing your space, taking a digital technology detox, and help for addicts. From Learning Fundamentals. Also has a presentation for use with with these learning outcomes: By the end of "The Facebook Effect" workshop students will: 1.have developed an understanding of how social network sites (e.g. Facebook) are highly addictive; 2. have developed an understanding of the many benefits of working in a focused manner in a distraction free environment; 3. have access to a range of tools to help them eliminate distractions in their work environment; 4. have a deeper understanding of how multitasking can slow down their mental processes and lead to poorer learning outcomes; and 5. be aware of strategies to enhance their focus and concentration

This post by Bob Miglani (author of best selling book Embrace the Chaos) is the way I want to be in leading the Studio--leaning in with ideas (because we don't have many resources right now), plowing ahead (taking action), and not letting my over-analytical DNA slow me down too much (so that we get lost in the marketplace trends moving ahead of us). I especially love the one line review of his book at the end--"...shows you how to relax and enjoy the messiness of life." So theoretically, it all fits well for me. But where is the $? :-)

blog post by Dmitri Dragilev in Better Humans "Dopamine is why CEOs write down goals and vision statements. As you move toward these goals, mentors and advisors reassure you that you are moving in the right direction and every step of the way you get a shot of dopamine. The problem is that all of us have learned how to cheat the system and get shots of dopamine without actually accomplishing anything. Gambling is a great example, every time you pull that handle on a slot machine you get dopamine. Alcohol is the same story, a shot of whiskey = a shot of dopamine, you want more, you repeat; you're not actually moving toward a vision or a goal." I too am guilty of dopamine addiction. I love email and depend on it for a lot of my day to day work. I love instigating stuff, fast back and forths, and knowing what is happening everywhere. But I have found that all this stuff re-prioritizes my day quite a bit. For the past year I have successfully disabled email, Twitter, Facebook, and text message notifications on my phone and have kept it off since then. My life has been transformed. Not only do I find that there are a lot less distractions, I find that I stay focused on the right tasks that keep me marching toward my overall goal. Again, I'm not saying that what I did is the magic formula for everyone. What I am saying is that perhaps it's time to re-assess how much you check your email, text messages, social media and your devices in general and see if you're cheating the system in order to get a rush of dopamine or you're truly marching toward your goal.

Blog post by Ann Michaelsen, January 27, 2012 "Have you ever sat down in front of your computer, expecting a lot of work to be done in a certain amount of time, only to find that you have done nothing work-related at all? Or that you've done a lot - just not what you planned to do? Many people are thinking about the way we spend our time and what gets our attention in this digital age. Howard Rheingold calls it infotention and I've been learning a lot about it recently thanks to his challenging but rewarding online course, "Introduction to Mind Amplifiers." It's a five-week experience using asynchronous forums, blogs, wikis, mindmaps, social bookmarks, synchronous audio, video, chat, and Twitter. Participation requires a serious commitment of time and attention by every member of the learning group. Believe me, the skill of staying focused on what is important certainly proves to be helpful here! The world demands "infotention" Infotention is a word I came up with to describe the psycho-social-techno skill/tools we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters. ~ Howard Rheingold"

Great short post by Oprah on getting unstuck. The quote by Turecki is so true: "Nothing happens until you decide." Excerpt: When our expert, Dr. Stanley Turecki, finished watching, he said something that made the hairs on my arm stand up: "Nothing happens until you decide." The reason her 3-year-old didn't sleep in his own bed was that the mother had not decided it would happen. When she did, the child would go to his bed. He might cry and scream and rant until he fell asleep, but he would eventually realize that his mother had made up her mind. Well, I knew he was speaking about a 3-year-old, but I also knew for sure that this brilliant piece of advice applied to many other aspects of life: Relationships. Career moves. Weight issues. Everything depends on your decisions. For years I was stuck in a weight trap, yo-yoing up and down the scale. I made a decision two years ago to stop wishing, praying, and wanting, wanting, wanting to be better. Instead I figured out what it would really take to improve my life. Then I decided to do it. When you don't know what to do, my best advice is to do nothing until clarity comes. Getting still, being able to hear your own voice and not the voices of the world, quickens clarity. Once you decide what you want, you make a commitment to that decision. One of my favorite quotes is from mountaineer W.H. Murray: "Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep res

part of the interview with Sonia Simone and Jerod Morris at Copyblogger following their decision several weeks ago to close down comments on the Copyblogger blog site. Excerpt: "I don't put my business assets on a platform that I don't control. So I don't put my content on a platform I don't control unless I have it somewhere I can keep it and benefit from it. I wouldn't post original content to Facebook. I would just never - it doesn't make a lot of sense, other than just a post, a simple throw-away kind of a post. So our content lives on our domain, in our e-mail lists. These are assets we can control. " I'm not sure exactly what she means by "content lives on our domain, in our e-mail lists." Maybe it's as simple as it's Copyblogger's stuff, they own it, it's only used to achieve their business purposes and it isn't original stuff that is published elsewhere or stored there on someone else's platform for digestion and use? Blog post also introduces "digital sharecropping" to me. Interesting note about Google-Plus, too. "The nice thing about Google-Plus is I'm notified when someone actually mentions my name, or if I'm following that discussion then I'm notified within Gmail or Google-Plus, any one of the Google products. So it's nice in that way. There's a lot more ease of use. "

Blog post by Sylvia Browder at the Story Exchange--where women mean business. "Challenge 2: Undefined Niche To Niche or Not to Niche…that is the question. What is a niche? A niche business is one that targets a very specific group of people with specific shared interest. A business with an undefined niche is like a ship sailing in shallow water. By creating a niche business allows you to market to your ideal clients. For example, if you were a behavioral psychologist targeting teens, you would market your services in places where parents are likely to find out about you; such as advertising in parent magazines, providing resources to local middle and high schools or joining organizations geared towards parents. Solution: By understanding who and where your ideal customers are; it is easy to craft a marketing plan to target them. Here are three easy ways to target your potential clients: * Improve your website's SEO with specific key words * Generate exposure locally and virtually with professional speaking, seminars or publishing a book or articles. * Craft a clear message that speak at the heart of your customer " Challenge 4: No Social Media Plan Random tweets and meandering Facebook posts will result in a lot of time devoted to zero results. Before making another useless post, sit down with pen and paper and make a list of what you want to achieve from social media. To which social media do you belong? What are some social media marketing strategies that you have noticed from other companies? What do you have that will offer value? You may find that your company is spread a little too thin across the social media spectrum. Quality truly is superior to quantity in this respect. Solution: Create a social media marketing plan and stay the long haul. Establishing a strong presence can be a very time consuming process. It is unwise to expect your list of fans, followers or subscribers to grow overnight.

Great resources in SlideShare on The Future of Education assembled by Lorraine K. Lee, September 19, 2014, before the Online Learning Conference. MOOCs, and Downes figure prominently.

article by Martin Dewhurst and Paul Willmott, September 2014 on new leadership skills required in age of new information technologies Machines force executives and senior leaders to: 1. open up their companies through crowdsourcing and social platforms within and across organizational boundaries 2. create data sets worthy of the most intelligent machines 3. "let go" in ways that run counter to a century of OD 4. executives...able to make the biggest difference through the human touch. ...questions they frame, their vigor in attaching exceptional circumstances highlighted by increasingly intelligent algorithms ... tolerating ambiguity and focusing on the "softer" side of management to engage the organization and build its capacity for self-renewal. 5. turbocharged data-analytics strategy, a new top-team mind-set, fresh talent approaches, and a concerted effort to break down information silos...transcend number crunching..."weak signals" from social media and other sources also contain powerful insights and should be part of the data-creation process. 6. ...early movers will probably gain insights of unstructured data, such as email discussions between representatives or discussion threads in social media. 7. ...dashboards don't create themselves. Senior executives must find and set the software parameters needed to determine, for instance, which data gets prioritized and which gets flagged for escalation. 8. ...odds of sinking under the weight of even quite valuable insights grow as well. Answer: democratizing it: encouraging and expecting the organization to manage itself without bringing decisions upward. ...business units and functions will be able to make more and better decisions on their own. 9. 8 will happen even as the CEO begins to morph into a "chief experimentation officer," who draws from acute observance of early signals to bolster a company's ability to experiment at scale. 10. need to "let go" will be more significant and the discomfort of s

Ronni Bennett's blog on As Time Goes By explores how all the automatic devices on sites from NYT and AARP and Daily Kos that involve popups, slide down covers, and sound are disrupting our concentration and brain health, and how the disruptions on these sites are creating longer-lasting interruptions in our ability to concentrate and think. September 10, 2014

Far down the page is a Tips for Success section for learning in a structured, supported online situation. Might be interesting to see how some of this translates into tips for inde(interde)pendent self-directed learners.

This woman is featured in Downes video at ChangeSchools event; her web page design, content, and expertise deserve a careful look.

Great short YouTube video via twitter on the joy of trying something new, the joy of failure, and the joy of practice = learning. Mike Wesch does a handstand for his students to show he is learning how to do them, then shows his young son George learning to climb down a stair step. Fun, yet gets the point across that failure is a big part of learning, as is practice.

Capterra lists survey vendors, Survey Monkey way down the list, but Capterra's motivation and method for building the list are not clear to me.