When you hire someone you hire their network!

As schools prepare their budgets for the new fiscal year, the time comes when either new positions or vacancies must be filled. In most instances, the hiring process can be quite labor intensive.  Assistant heads, division heads, teachers, and students are often involved in the process but in an effort to reduce load, I simply propose that your school consider this, when you hire someone you hire their network.  While the concept of networking is not a novel one, I would emphasize that my definition of network is better suited to the personal learning network.  If your school is serious about developing 21st century skills, developing relationships with other schools, and making better global citizens, then it is essential that those doing the hiring recognize the importance of the network potential employees can bring to their school.

After reviewing resumes, like many organizations, I head to the web to see what kind of digital footprint the potential candidate has. Essentially, does the candidate Google Well.  If things go well for the candidates, they are present in some of the following digital arenas: 

• they have a blog or they post comments regularly
• preferably about their educational philosophy or activities that convey that philosophy
• they have an active twitter account with useful tweets
• they actively participate in educational nings
• they have their own website
• an ePortfolio of activities
• their Facebook page does not contain questionable material

Will one miss a jewel in the rough? Possibly, but one can certainly glean a great deal more from a candidate who participates regularly online.  While this method works when looking for instructional technologists, tech directors, and tech coordinators, it is time for schools to be more selective and expect candidates to Google Well because it is no longer good enough to simply know the material.

Infographic: How Employers Use Social Media to Hire and Fire

from the Atlantic Monthly

Blogging about Tweets: Open-Source Texts

I continue to be amazed by the conversations that I have on twitter.  I talk it up regularly but I can't seem to get the majority of my teachers or administrators to dive into this incredibly valuable application.  So instead, I use twitter to feed my faculty and staff with little pearls that are shared by peeps from around the world.  I must admit that when asked where did you find this information or resource, I'm proud to say that it came from my PLN on twitter.

All right I'll get off my soapbox and back to the gist of this post.

In early December, @fredbartels posted a tweet regarding online texts.  Below is a transcript of our conversation.

fredbartels: How do we get the Chemistry teachers together for a day to brainstorm replacements for textbooks?5:33am, Dec 03 from Twitter for iPhone

cuevash: @fredbartels How about organizing a series of unconference events to bring folks together? thoughts?5:48am, Dec 03 from Web

fredbartels: @cuevash Unconference events to bring folks together is a brilliant idea! Who do we get to organize and fund them?6:02am, Dec 03 from Web

cuevash: @fredbartels it may be possible for individual school's to sponsor a certain discipline and have an opportunity to connect w all on the web6:26am, Dec 03 from Echofon

fredbartels: @cuevash Seems like a viable approach. What would be the incentive for a subject area specialist to attend one of these?

At this point I fell off the conversation because family life took over.  A few days later we picked up right where we left off.

cuevash6:43am via HootSuite

@fredbartels Realized I nvr responded to ur last tweet re: unconference and incentive 4 subj area specialists.

cuevash6:44am via HootSuite

@fredbartels Hope to gather life long learners who would want to participate in a collaborative effort to develop a superior resource

cuevash: @fredbartels for students that is inexpensive and or free, accessible from the web, self managed and updated for accuracy and relevance.6:46am, Dec 11 from HootSuite

cuevash6:49am via HootSuite

@fredbartels it would be great if discipline leaders would emerge to facilitate the process and perhaps dev a standardized format.

@fredbartels @cuevash Brilliant! A compellling rationale for helping with open source 'texts'. Love how Twitter can help distill ideas down to essences.

So where does this leave us?  Well the conversation is certainly far from over but perhaps with sufficient interest, we can overcome inertia and get something started.

Are you interested? Know someone who might be interested?  Then join the conversation but at minimum let others know.

Thanks Fred for the inspiration!

123, ABC, TCP/IP, and now PLN-the power of your personal learning network

Our school is seriously considering replacing our desktops for a more mobile approach.  We've tossed around the idea of netbooks throughout the fall and I've been the guinea pig with my Acer Aspire One.  (See my post/review of this netbook here.)  I've run this netbook through some pretty rigorous use and our tech department seems satisfied that these devices can handle just about any classroom app we can throw at it.  The only exception however seems to be in the area of video production but I have yet to try anything beyond a standard Youtube length.

With our concerns about the netbook's firepower behind us, we needed to look into the sturdiness, network connectivity, and mobility of these devices.  We looked at the Acer, HP, Asus, and Dell netbooks and we found that the Dell seemed to fit our needs the best.  Our next step was to contact another school that uses the Dell Latitude 2100 with the cart to validate what we thought was going to be a good match for us.

Now as an avid twitterer, I've been tweeting away about our thoughts to Dell Latitude 2100 and sure enough, @bkolani aka Basil Kolani from the Dwight School in NYC replied via twitter that his school deployed 5 netbook carts in the fall of 2009.  So we set up a Skype session where several members of our tech department were able to ask specific questions about their experience not only with the netbooks but the cart itself.

If interested, one may listen to our Skype conversation here.  It is unedited so be patient in the opening seconds.

After the Skype session our tech department was relieved that many of their ideas regarding the new direction had been validated.

There is nothing better than having a member of your PLN validate the potential direction and financial investment our school will be considering and for that I am truly grateful.

http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams

Dave Warlick's Picture of his Personal Learning Network

The Personal Learning Network(PLN) is the New Reference Librarian

In the fall of 2008, our school joined PLP-Powerful Learning Practice. At our opening meeting, we were encouraged by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson to develop our PLN or Personal Learning Network. As a node within an expanding network, the PLN improves the probability that one will come in contact with those individuals who can assist us with in my case, technological aspirations, endeavors, and questions. However, it is the unique 2 way nature of the PLN that strengthens, validates, and ensures the reliability of the information within the network.

Well back to the title of this post. Having done a number of research papers during my tenure as a student and a teacher in training, I cannot emphasize the importance of reference librarians. Their acuity for detail and the vast quantities of information that they seem to absorb daily is astounding. However, the availablity of this resource is often limited to face 2 face meetings and email. As Web 2.0 technologies often do, an opportunity for a new paradigm in this arena has taken form and the tool is Twitter.

Now I have not written a research paper in a few years, so my reliance on reference librarians has been minimal but for several months now, I have relied heavily on my PLN via Twitter to gather information both actively and passively. Everyday my PLN provides me with some pearl of wisdom or a response to a query and I can only hope that I am able to do the same for those who have included me in their PLN.

Nevertheless, because I am Still Learning, I am grateful to have my very own PLN/Web 2.0 reference librarian.