I've been writing about wikis (and other social technologies) can be terrific platforms for supporting professional learning in real time, but it requires a comfort level with “learning in public.” You can learn in public in different ways - self-directed individual learning, with a peer group or in an organization, or as a network or entire field practice. The Packard Foundation's organizational effectiveness wiki has an excellent example of this networked approach to public learning … [Read more...]
Lessons from Red Cross: Twitter Mistakes and How To Handle Them
Back over the summer, I wrote a post called "What was your worst social media mistake? What did you learn?" If you read through the comments, misdirected tweets (tweets sent to an organizational account, not a personal account or private message sent out to all) were the most common. These ranged from tweeting about a favorite television show to much worse, tweeting the "c-word" Back in November, someone in Senator Dowd's office made this epic Twitter mistake. They apologized and … [Read more...]
Pause: The Discipline of Noticing
Last month, I had the opportunity to participate in a "Share Your Practice" with colleagues at CPSquared (a community of practice of people who are interested in communities of practice). These sessions are a social reflection process - you intentionally reflect together with professional colleagues on the trade craft of your work. How many of us have the discipline to notice what we're doing with our professional work? Our natural tendency is to keeping moving forward on the to do list, to … [Read more...]
Using Social Media for Professional Learning: Seek, Sense, and Share
For 2011, my three words are: Seek, Sense, and Share inspired by Harold Jarche's model for networked learning. How these words will guide me in 2011: Seek: Seeking is the process of keeping up to date in your field. Over the past decade, the Internet and social media have been one of my primary sources for professional learning. To me, seeking represents the topics or content that I'm curious about and that will help me be more effective at my work as a social media and nonprofit … [Read more...]
A Reflection on Networked Professional Learning
Many years ago before digital cameras and children, my husband and I used to spend many hours combining two past times: birding and photography. Over the holidays, we picked out some of the best to scan. Looking at these photos reminds me of how much focused attention we gave to setting up the shot, shooting during the best time for light, debating the rule of thirds, taking photos at different angles, f-stops, and timings, etc. There was a slowness to it that we don't have with … [Read more...]
