My Personal Learning Network

Personal Learning Networks force you to consider how you will manage your learning. Coming from one who has been accustomed to letting others dictate their learning, I can say without a doubt that this is work and required a concerted effort on my part to think through all of the processes I have been exposed to this summer.

I enjoyed my summer of learning and had a great deal of fun experimenting with some applications and an equal amount of frustrations working with others. Overall, though, my experience was a positive one. And one I would not have tried had it not been for EDUC689. I am much less apprehensive about trying new applications and have become more willing to take risk, at least with this. Risk in other areas is slowly coming also.

Take a look at my coverpage and learning network. I hope you enjoy it and become inspired to create your own, if you don't have one already. I commented on those that I will continue to use currently; the others will be used as the opportunity arises.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2295263/PLN (this was fun to do!)

(To see inside the box, click inside and use the toggle arrows on your keyboard. You may also click to increase the magnification, before toggling. The purple represents every application I learned about this summer. The green bubbles are attached to the applications I will use regularly. The grey bubble is the questionable one.)



Don't forget to leave me a comment!

Workplace Learning

After reading Jane Hart's blog, http://www.janeknight.typepad.com/, I am very impressed with the site, and especially the workplace application presentation made. She has shown how social media can be used and what it will do. By taking each application presented and dabbling with it, the user can answer a few evaluative questions.

• How does this work?
• Does it have a professional application or a business application for me?
• Can I share its use with others in my area?

Jane states that in order to truly understand how to use social media, a person must use it and then find its selling points, if you will, so that its benefits can then gain buy in from others. Coming from the perspective of a newbie, I can understand how some would expect to receive an hour presentation and be able to walk away with clear understanding on how social media works. However, from the perspective of an adult learner, I can say appreciation of the media is in its usage. And that most of the time usage is simple.

If we use the media with ease, we can also help others to do the same. By doing this, we are actually building our workforce. This would be a perfect opportunity for an unmeeting. We could take a select group of folk to a room, introduce one of the media and then say, 'You have one hour to experiment and play with this application. We will meet back at the end of the hour to discuss your experiences and comments. Have fun and see you later!' Sure, some will be frustrated and we can work with them, but I think most will come back with favorable comments to share.

The point is to take your time, think about what you are doing and then determine how social media can be used to your advantage. If you can think of an advantage for yourself, you will be able to think of them for others.

Wirearchy

Presenting a challenge to hierarchies of past business structures, wirearchy sets a new precedence for how businesses should run. With the hunger for information and the ready accessibility of it online, there is no longer a necessity to wait for responses to request for information. Anyone can use Goggle, Bing or any other resource to discover what may have taken, by committee, several hours to determine, discover or define. And this is just on the business side. When the customer can do the same, it makes the old hierarchy of information disbursement seem archaic. And embarassing. There is nothing like your customer being more informed about your business than you, especially when the source of their information is outside of your business structure.


I believe that one component that plays a part in this change is the freedom with which information is readily shared. In the past, the hierarchy (of any organization) had a way of retaining information so that only certain individuals had access. Those who had access dared not to share the information with anyone else. And felt privileged for knowing. Now, there is no sense which requires the perceived guarding of information. Information is designed to assist others in the acquiring of knowledge for necessary processes. The sharing of information now is designed to have all affected parties involved in the conversation regarding it. This means the end-user has as much power and influence as the creator. Hopefully, this will also mean a greater respect for those who are the end-users as they are often the ones who discover the nuances and idiosycrecies of the product or ideas.