The most important component of a Personal Learning Network is the quality of the educators one follows. “Who is it that I should follow?” is a question that I am often asked by educators. It is the focus of educators every Friday on Twitter as the #FF hashtags fly. The “#FF” stands for “Follow Friday”. Each tweet often carries a list of educators who have shown value as an education tweeter to someone. To often these are groups of tweeters without an explanation as to who these people are, or what they specifically tweet about in education. People are asked to blindly accept another educator’s recommendation to follow someone. I would prefer individual recommendations to explain why that person should be followed. What is important to keep in mind however is that one can unfollow as easily as one follows anyone. No announcement of unfollowing is ever made.
I recently wrote a post about how unconnected we educators really are: Twitterati: Progressive EDU leaders or outliers? I chose Twitter as the focus for connectedness since I have come to believe that Twitter is a backbone to many of the leading thought leaders in the connected world of educators. Apparently that view is not shared by a majority of educators. A leading National Educators organization used that post as a springboard to poll its members on the subject. They generously shared the results with me. The majority (55%) felt Twitter was not important to create professional learning. Specifically in regard to Twitter: 29% Not at all important, 26% Not very important, 21% Neutral, 12% somewhat important, 12% Very important. I guess I was hoping that people saw its value, but could not find the time to use it. Based on this unscientific poll, educators fail to see the value.
About five years ago I proposed an idea to gift administrators with a working Twitter account loaded with connected educators, so that they could see the value first hand without having to use time in creating an account as an excuse. That may have been a bit pushy, but I am a New Yorker born & bred. The idea raised a few hackles. Today, Twitter has enabled tweeters to create lists of their followers. Many create these lists to share with others, or just to organize their accounts. I have gone through the 2,400 people who I follow to create a list of the most valued follows I have. Since no one can pay full attention to 2,400 follows with any consistency, I concentrate on my stalwarts, the people I count on for the red meat in education. I have about 100 of them. These are my personal thought leaders in my Professional Learning network. They offer ideas, question me, praise me, and share endlessly.
If one understands Twitter, one understands that the quality of the PLN is directly tied to the quality, knowledge, understanding and sharing of the individuals followed. Following the right educators will be the difference between expanding and progressing as an educator, or seeing Twitter as a waste of time, therefore the follow choices are a key to success.
Twitter is a simple concept. If you follow ten people you will only get content from those ten. If they are limited in scope of your follows then your scope will be limited as well. Following a larger more diverse group gets you more opinions and diverse ideas. If I were to provide a new tweeter with my Stalwart list of educators that I count on for my education inspiration and clarity, that tweeter would see education as I do, and take from it whatever it is he or she needs. By following each individual on that list their Twitterstream would overflow with education content 24/7. They in turn will be exposed to more recommendations that might more align with their needs. In the spirit of connecting more educators, and witnessing to the world about the importance of being connected to educators for caring and sharing, improving and moving, I offer this list: My Twitter Stalwarts. Follow each of them and drop off who you will, and you will be more connected to education thought leaders. Similar lists can be found on the profiles of Tweeters from the Twitter app. When you find someone who offers tweets that you value, find out whom it is that they follow. Please share your lists with others as well. Please, if you do an #FF tweet offer some credentials for your recommendation. The only way for connectedness to benefit educators is if we are connected. The way for connectedness to work well is to be connected to people who have the best to offer and are committed to offering it.
Great Post Tom! I think that the poll is not indicative of educators knowledge of the benefits of twitter. As someone relatively new to twitter in a professional sense, I am only now seeing all the great things it can offer and kicking myself for not jumping on the bandwagon sooner. I’m sure this goes for many educators who just simply haven’t given it a try or like me, upon first try, didn’t know how to tap into those great leaders. I think your gift idea is a fabulous thought. I would have figured out how twitter could help my teaching long ago if someone had set me up like this. Thanks for the Stalwarts list. @learninglife4me
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Sad that teachers don’t see the value of Twitter. I think it’s very important not only to stay current on trends, tools and research, but also for simple encouragement.
Great post Tom!
Tom, how do ordinary people like me get on the top 100 list? 🙂
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It’s very hard to recommend multiple people – I feel that twitter is such a limited medium as you are forced to use 100+ characters only. And some people don’t post their best content on twitter – its a fickle medium sometimes. If the aim here is to consume and digest informational content, then I recommend going beyond twitter and using an RSS feed manager to get things in real time and to interact with people in a more direct manner through their blogs as soon as they post something interesting.
When you’re trying to network with thought leaders (and aren’t perceived one as yourself), then it’s hard to get actual feedback from said people. Everyone wants to follow a thought leader but for Twitter being a medium for mutual everyday learners connecting I feel it’s quite limited – Facebook groups I’ve found provide far more interactive support and help than Twitter because Twitter is a generally a top-down medium for communication – you can only include so many people in a tweet, and if no one follows you then your voice will definitely not be heard. In Facebook if you post something in a group, everyone who is a part of that group will hear and have the chance to interact. Twitter does not have this capability. Twitter is definitely not the end all of social media – what is important for us to understand is the purpose and power that said social media can afford us – Twitter just happens to be one of the most popular.
For the purpose of learning versus interacting, the systematic use of subscriptions w/ different networks and RSS feeds can work wonders. I have multiple twitter accounts for multiple PLNs (there are so many things to learn in this great and grand world), and utilize youtube subscriptions. If you use multiple methods to construct your own PLN, the more robust and sound it will actually be.
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[…] The most important component of a Personal Learning Network is the quality of the educators one follows. “Who is it that I should follow?” is a question that I am often asked by educators. It is th… […]
[…] The most important component of a Personal Learning Network is the quality of the educators one follows. “Who is it that I should follow?” is a question that I am often asked by educators. It is th… […]
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[…] started. For advice on building your PLN and a list of thought leaders to follow, read “To Whom Should I Connect?” by Tom Whitby. For more inspiration and resources, take a look at “Five-Minute Film […]
Thank you Tom for the list of educators to follow to get me started on building my PLN!
[…] Building your PLN on twitter: I found a great post from Tom Whitby about how to build your PLN. (Which was actually a challenge for me. I wanted specific content that was reputable. It takes deep digging) Tom did the work for us and put his top 100 people in education to follow. So if you are looking for quality people in education to follow on twitter check out his blog here. […]