Social Media for Professional Learning

One of the keys to increasing engagement in learning is using a student’s current interests and knowledge base as a springboard to new learning. A key social media engagement technique is finding out where stakeholders already are engaged, and using that platform to reach them.

Put in these terms, pairing learning with social media seems like a natural fit.

A valid point raised in Social Media Vital to Professional Development is that many people dismiss the power of social media as being “all junk”. Let’s rethink this idea.

LinkedIn for Professional Learning

If you want to be recognized professionally for a certain knowledge base, where do you start demonstrating all that you know? The answer is where you have the most professional connections. In my case, the easy answer was LinkedIn.

Like many people, years ago when the platform was much younger, I set up an account and started connecting with people that I knew through school and work. When I was ready for a change in position, I targeted where I wanted to be, then I started writing long-form posts about what I know, and posting shorter updates with links, similar to a feed on Facebook or Twitter. What happened next?

People in my targeted industry who I do not personally know started connecting with me and commenting on my posts, and hence my Personal Learning Network (PLN) grew. (For a discussion about PLN’s see my post from last week on Just-In-Time Support for Instructional Technology).

By using the updates and long-form posts of my connections, I was able to leverage LinkedIn as a PLN and a learning tool.

Twitter for Professional Learning

Once I got the hang of LinkedIn connections, I was intrigued by several articles that I had read (on LinkedIn) and seen in conference presentations on using Twitter as a hub for professional learning.

I think one of the best talks that I heard on Twitter was titled and was presented by and Anna Crawford of Lewisville ISD, just north of Dallas, Texas.

Fontana talked about how you need to make sure that with your professional Twitter account you follow those who Tweet…