Erik’s Random Babble

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=199

In this somewhat disjointed presentation, Vinnie Vrotny talks about several options for using social networking sites to connect with other people in the educational technology field. He first demonstrates how to set up and use the Twitter site to expand one’s personal learning network. Next, he walks through using the Ning community for extending the discussion beyond the K12 Online Conference. A very quick glance around the Twitter and Ning sites doesn’t quite have me sold on this, as I feel there are other, better ways for active involvement and communication with colleagues in the ed-tech world. Although it’s nice that Vinnie’s trying to show how to take basically any online networking tool and adapt it to the education and professional development realm, I don’t really see any compelling reason to use either of these sites at this point.

Unlike other presentations, this one featured multiple linked files, the first two of which did not seem to have been properly uploaded onto the K12 Conference site, as their file extensions were off and they also suffered from rather poor audio quality. It also wasn’t immediately obvious that the real “meat” of the presentation was actually lurking in an audio-only file (which was also broken up into 6 segments under the Supporting Links).

Criticism aside, though, I do think Vinnie’s on-the-mark as far as the importance of connecting and exchanging ideas with professional colleagues, as well as with parents. Though I may not choose the same tools that Vinnie singled out, I do think it’s good to maintain multiple lines of communication with immediate coworkers, the extended learning network of our students’ families, and others within our field throughout the world.