My progress towards active participation in social networking has been slow; however every step of my journey provides valuable learning opportunities.

What has worked for me over the past three months, and what areas do I still have room to grow?

What’s worked for me:

I have seen how becoming more connected as an educator to information and sharing through social media (Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn are the areas I am currently most active) have promoted personal transformational change that is making me a better person and educator.

I have found myself increasingly drawn to and spending time viewing my Twitter feed. Building my network of professionals to follow and learn from.

I have found myself using RT as a way to save articles and information that I find interesting or would like to refer back to at a later date. This has been more for personal review and reflection, rather than to share things with my small group of followers.

I have found myself more often emailing links to share with colleagues or discuss with others.

Areas for continued growth:

As I stated in my first post, one of the things I learned while blogging before was that setting regular pattern of posts was extremely helpful for me.

I am still trying to become comfortable with creating original content to share on my blog or through Twitter.

While I still am searching for what fits myself, my style and finding my voice, I believe this will come with time and experience.

Personal Learning

One area that I have been doing a lot of personal reflection on has been how becoming more connected as an educator through social media can be a valuable component of my own personal learning. I have been thinking a lot about my own personal, professional, and academic goals.

In reflecting on my own personal learning style, I have found that the best model for me combines online and face-to-face interaction with a cohort group. This lends itself to the social and group interactions I have found through Twitter, but I still have found limitations to my own learning absent of the face-to-face interactions. Based upon this, I have set goals to learn in the following environments in the coming months:

1. I have registered for #etmooc, ready to engage in a broad-based learning group, hoping to challenge my previous struggles in a strictly online environment.

2. I have registered and will be attending an Innovative Technology Academy course through Association of California School Administrators that is based upon the Leading Edge Certification for Administrators. This combines for me the online and face-to-face interactions I have found myself successful with in the past.

3. I have been doing a great deal of personal reflection and research into continuing education by possibly pursuing an Educational Doctorate Degree. For me finding the right program is crucial (more on that in a later post).

I look forward to exploring the different learning opportunities I have set out in front of me, as well as the many connections and community of learners I will be interacting with.