Chapter 2 of Richardson’s book on PLNs offers up tips for “jumping in” to the world of PLNs. He recommends five specific web 2.0 tools to initiate connections: 1. Twitter, 2. Blogger , 3. Google Reader, 4. Diigo, and 5. Facebook.
Richardson’s suggestions got me looking for other recommendations on the best 2.0 tools for the task. While many recommended the same tools as Richardson, others offered even more possibilities. Both Lisette Casey, and Lisa Nielsen, aka the Innovative Educator recommend joining a professional social network like Edublogger or Classroom 2.0. Like Richardson, Nielsen stresses the need to use a tool like Google Reader to follow a handful of bloggers.
The problem I have discovered is that Google Reader is shutting down July, 2013. So, I will need to seek out some alternatives to manage my deluge of incoming information. From what I have read so far, some viable options are: Netvibes, the Old Reader, Feedly, and Pageflakes. I will keep you posted on this.
Sue Waters, better known as The Edublogger, has created a valuable wiki for those about to take on the challenge of creating a PLN. She offers step by step tips on setting up a twitter account, starting a blog, subscribing to blogs, using social bookmarking tools (like Diigo mentioned above), and joining an ning (which turns out is what sites like Classroom 2.0 and Edublogger are apparently!)
Both Eric Patnoudes and Kate Klingensmith recommend attending webinars (web 2.0 Live or Edtech Talk Live) and backchanneling conferences as means of building your PLN. I confess, I had no idea what backchanneling was. I thought it meant sneaking in the back door of conferences I couldn’t afford. In a way it kind of does. Read more about it HERE.
Finally, Katie Morrow’s slideshare offers up all of the above, as well as teleconference tools like Skype, and podcasting (iTtunes U or Education Podcast Network). Something I had not even considered!
What I have discovered over the last few days is that PLNs are as unique and personal as the people that are creating them. There is no “one size fits all” model of PLNs.
I came across Skip Via’s podcast about PLNs which sums this past week’s reading perfectly. So I will leave you with this as I begin to allign my list of PLN needs (posted last day) with the web 2.0 tools at my disposal.