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anonymous

Which social network should I use as a librarian? - 0 views

  • Which social network should I use as a librarian?
  • I've already hinted at this, but it's time to be more specific. My online contacts are now the way in which I get my information. They (or probably you) are constantly sending me a stream of useful stuff, which is personalized to my interests, based on my choices of who to follow, and who to pay attention to. So this isn't 'social' in the way that we're used to thinking of it, it's a hugely influential stream of data. If I follow you, you influence me, and if you follow me, I'm influencing you. It may be simply because the tweets or links are funny or interesting, or they match my personal interests.
  • My RSS feeds are similarly hugely important to me. My feeds and the information there, drawn from blogs, searches, profile pages and the like are not there for me to read every single one - that way would lie insanity. They are there to alert me to news that I'm likely to find important. Any one of those blogs or posts or tweets are saying 'this is happening, go check it out' with the important link. I don't need to read everything that each of my contacts has said (although sometimes I do, if I want lots of different views and opinions), because they're all pointing me to the source, and I can go off there and read what I need.
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  • The amount of data that's flooding out is truly daunting, and if I didn't have a social network - or rather, several of them, I simply wouldn't be able to cope. My filters are no longer based on the magazines that I read, or the evening news, they're based on the people that I follow. Now, this is really important I think, because what it does is links me into particular communities. The data I am served is important, but the community is increasingly valuable.
  • This is why - as librarians - we need to be involved in as many social networks as we possibly can. By doing this we're absolutely doing our professional job - we're helping to create and maintain communities - and it doesn't matter if that's a workplace community, a community based on geography or one that's based on specific content. We have to consider how to curate data within this social media environment, and I'll look at that in more detail later. Secondly, we're acting as authority filters. I know that when I get a tweet about a subject it's going to be good quality. I don't have the same trust with something like Google, or pretty much any other search engine. There are exceptions to this rule, since search engines are beginning to inject Facebook data into the SERPs, but in general, I'll trust people a lot more than I'll trust a computer. And - when it comes down to it, I'm going to trust a librarian more than just about anyone else.
  • By using social media it's much easier to get the information that you need quickly and effectively by asking a question in the right format. I couldn't remember who wrote the piece which I've now attributed to Woodsiegirl, but I had the answer within seconds from several different sources by tweeting the question.
  • The point however is that often we don't know we're in specific groups, but we can nonetheless play very important roles. Just because you don't think you're important doesn't actually mean that you're not. I really want to push this point once more before moving on. In my experience librarians do not often think they are that important, and they don't value their skills as highly as they should. Please do consider the value that you can give to others within your social networks - even when you're doubtful that you do give value!
  • The more that librarians do - NOW - with social media, the more that we're going to already be embedded into the social medium. The more contacts, friends, links, tweets, photographs, likes, +1's that we have, the more influential we can become. The more influential we are, the more people will link to what we're doing, the more we'll be working in networks of influence and the more useful we can be to people."
  • This can all be neatly summarized with the phrase that I use all the time 'go to where the conversations are'. We all know that users of library services are physically using them less, so we need to really utilise social to keep in contact with them. But it's more than that. We need to show them - by using social media how valuable contact with us can be. The more value we can provide, the more likely our work is going to filter up and down the information chain. People are increasingly taking the view that if news is important, it will find them. For many people - particularly younger users, 'checking the news' means looking on Facebook because for them, the 'news' is what they see, read have shared with them, and share with others. Similiarly, I share my information via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, my blog, LinkedIn and so on. It doesn't just get posted onto my site. We can't do that any longer. At the end of this article I've put up a quick poll - I'm really interested to see how YOU found this article. It's one question, and will take about 5 seconds to answer.
  • This new way of providing content and added value is not going to sit happily with traditional users of media - even if they think that they have made the leap into the internet. The traditional CEO, publishers of books, magazines and other print material, traditional authors, advertisers, press and publicity directors are not going to flourish. If we, as librarians think that we've got it bad, it's as nothing in comparison to those folks.
  • The main difference is that we know we have to change and adapt or we'll die.
Lisa Dawley

Participatory Scholars and 21st Century Scholarship - 2 views

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    Great discussion on difference between PLEs and PLNs, scroll down about half way
anonymous

Twitter for Teachers YouTube video - 5 views

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    I just learned two valuable lessons…one write your work outside of the textboxes and save it because your computer may freeze and you'll lose your work…how many times have I told my online students this, yet I did the same mistake?! Secondly, develop a system of finding the same resource over again. Perhaps save it in your favorites or copy and paste the link somewhere… I spent 15 minutes trying to refind my resource. Grrr. Back to the purpose of this post...This video link provided a summary of how teachers can use a PLN such as Twitter to "stream" information for use in their classrooms. You can take what you like or let the information float by knowing that more information always comes down the stream. It provides a simple visual example of using PLN. Much of the information contained in the video has already been stated throughout our Diigo group, but I chose it because I liked how it summarized PLNs. I actually used my newly established Twitter account to find this resource. I typed "Personal Learning Networks" into the search field , scanned through the posts that were in English, found one with "teachers" in the title, which is my interest and reviewed the resource posted. I liked the resource and felt I should share it with my Boise peers. From this point, I can read further into the topic by clicking on related links or I can explore the person's profile that provided the link to get to know the source. However, I chose to take the information and move on in the interest of time. Perfect!
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    I love this video! I posted an article about Twitter before I watched this video, now I have even more information I can bring back to my principal to support the use of Twitter. Thanks for posting this!
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    I like the link. I like how descriptive it is, and it gives an interesting introduction. In my last class, (522) I did a web cast presentation on how to use twitter effectively for teaching purposes. This video validates a lot of my research on the use of twitter in education. There are so many cool social media outlets, I wonder what the next "biggest thing" will be? The presenter's English accent threw me at first, but then I envied his brogue.
tsurridge

Do PLN's Lead to Dissatisfaction? - 4 views

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    This was an interesting blog post that essentially asks, is it better to remain uninformed? This is a very real question for the passionate educator. Once one connects in to best practices, it can become increasingly difficult to abide in the current practice of one's own school. As an example, my wife is a nationally board certified teacher, she works in a private school with great resources (her third grade classroom is one to one laptops) , but through fairly poor leadership, the technology largely remains outside the circle of meaningful practice in her school. Her peers largely rejected any thought of instructional transformation, and as a result, her school has essentially provided every student a laptop computer to utilize as a sixth textbook, or a word processor. Being a progressive educator, engaging in professional reading, and attending conferences, can be incredibly frustrating when one understands the possibilities and sees dynamic change occurring elsewhere. It's almost like you are standing outside the gate, seeing the party, but have no means of entering. This might seem like whining, and the comments in the post somewhat bear that out, but it is part of the burden one must assume in working to create change. So, is ignorance bliss? In all honesty, sometimes it can feel so.... ts
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    If I may... There just may be areas of life about which we are better off not knowing, but I'm not sure. Then again, I'm happy that many hostile biologists do not possess the sequence and the genetic code for the small pox virus. Your addition to this page does raise some interesting questions.
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    Whenever I read or hear "Ignorance is bliss" I can't help but see thee image of Cypher chomping down on a huge steak in the Matrix. While there are definitely areas in life where mankind should remain ignorant (nobody wants that seventh grader bringing a laser gun to class), teachers being more aware of better practices or what's happening in more technologically advanced schools is one of them. Seeing these new ideas can lead the teacher to ask, "How can I make that work in my classroom even if I don't have everything they have?" At least a passionate educator might. The dispassionate educator probably isn't even utilizing a PLN.
Lisa Dawley

Personal Learning Environments, Networks, and Knowledge | Technology Enhanced Knowledge... - 1 views

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    Open Course through Athabasca University
Dennis Lecker

Outstanding Forum - 4 views

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    This forum is part of a larger site the contains a wealth of forums and literature pertaining to connectivism and other learning theories. It is fun to see Stephen Downes interact with others in a forum setting. I'm hoping to also locate Siemens.
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