Social Networks: Fitting In...

I have just finished exploring some interesting tools in the social networking world. Up to this point in my life, "social networking" has mostly consisted of creating an online scrapbook of my accomplishments in my personal life, not so much my professional life. My involvement with social networking is worlds away from any Personal Learning Network concept (I don't even talk "shop" with my teaching colleagues online, we only dish on personal stuff). I would play games with "friends" (some which I have never or plan on never meeting off of the Internet), posting pics of my recent vacation, and bragging about how my son told a hilarious joke or lost his first tooth. I wrestle daily with the issue of social sites being nothing but a distraction from my completion of normal tasks in real life.
My first task in exploring social networking as a meaningful part of real life was to look at the concept of efficient workflow. I read through a series of charts and questions about sorting priorities and even downloaded David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) Tool for Mastering Workflow. I took the quick quiz to identify my perspective and control over my workflow. Needless to say, I failed. I failed miserably. I am in what he classifies as Quadrant 1, way down in the corner of the matrix at "Responder/Victim".  I am not completely shocked by the results. I have always had excellent intentions when beginning any project, large or small. I am great at brainstorming, almost too good at it. I find myself coming up with so many wonderful ideas that I then bog myself down with the prospect of being able to accomplish them all at once. This ultimately leads to my failure in completing the task or never finishing it at all. I am not sure if I view myself as a "Victim" though, I know that I am in control of how this all goes down, I don't blame anyone else for my lack of progress. This is something that I am interested in finding out more about from David Allen. I will be working more on my workflow plan and am really interested in seeing how this filtering can improve my focus on prioritizing and helping complete tasks more efficiently.

My next task was to see Ning in action. I used the suggested channel of joining the MSUEduTech Group on MACUL Space. It was really neat to view a "productive" social networking site. I wasn't bombarded with distractions. I wasn't viewing cute videos of cats playing pianos or anything else colorful or flashy to catch my eye and keep me from working. Everything feeding through this site was dedicated to building a PLN and it was very interesting. I will be revisiting this format so more and exploring further from the MSUEdTech group. I am also curious how I could use this to establish a group of colleagues from school for sharing. Recently, during grade level curriculum meetings, the fifth grade teachers had expressed a want for a place online where we could meet and confer outside of our school's direct supervision to discuss and share our experiences with a newly adopted Literacy program involving Guided Reading and Daily 5. I am known within the group as being comfortable with computers and technology and was informally dubbed the one to check things out for everyone. We have our next meeting on Tuesday afternoon and I may have something really great to share with them on this.

My next task was to check out LinkedIn. I liked how there were widgets with Twitter feeds and Facebook mentions streaming. I was a little nervous putting in my professional information because it felt more like I was lurking for a job rather than sharing my credentials for building a community. I plan to come back to this and give it a bit more of a chance later on. I can see how those starting off in the their respective field could use this as a great jumping point for their career, but I am not sure how I could use this professionally or with students or colleagues at the moment.

 My final task was to visit the MAET Program page on Facebook and "Like" it. This was by far the easiest and most comfortable to complete, but again, most distracting. I like how Facebook can be an easy place to network but I believe that it has become increasing more diffucult to filter who you wish to interact with at a particular moment. I think that this site would be extrememly detrimental in my possible workflow plan because of my inability to separate the professional with the personal. I am not sure that I would want this site as my primary PLN tool nor would I attempt to start colleagues or students here because of the overlap with professional and personal.