Beginning at the End- Personal Learning Networks

On the last day of the CA League of Schools K-12 Technology and RTI Conference, I decided I wouldn't go to any workshops that were wildly different from what I'd done so far.  I went looking for workshops that would reinforce what I already had learned.  It had been emphasized over and over that people were using their Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) to help them expand their use of technology in schools.   So I went to Mark Wagner's workshop called "Personal Learning Networks for Educators: Now with Google+". (notes and slides from that workshop here)
Now, I already had a Google+ account through which I've connected with a few friends and I belong to some email lists where I sometimes connect to some good resources... but I didn't have a Twitter account, I rarely used my Google Reader to plug into the blogs I like, and I honestly knew the the keynote speaker, Will Richardson, only through books.
 Mark suggested that there were four reasons to get started on creating a networks.  They were:

• Make Connections
• Make Contributions
• Make Conversation
• Make Requests

Here were his basic steps to getting started:
1. Join a few blogs and start writing one when you are ready.   To that end, I dusted off Google Reader, installed Feedly on my iPad to make it easier to read, and subscribed to a couple of the packaged feeds in Google Reader (Edtech, Education, and eLearning) to round out the blogs I already had.  I also helped get this blog started so I could start adding to the stream.
2. Join Classroom 2.0.  Haven't done this one yet.
3. Join Twitter and follow others.  Done.  I was encouraged by the suggestion of several speakers that you don't have to read EVERY tweet that goes past.  I mainly picked people that had tweeted using the #clstech hash.
4. Join Google+ and follow a shared circle.  I slurped Mark's Edtech Circle with almost 500 people into my existing Google+ account.  I think I'm going to watch that for a while and winnow it down to people that interest me and to whom I feel like I have things to say.  I'm planning to make my own Edtech circle and adding people to it until I have a group that seems to work for me.
Throughout all of this, I keep remembering Will Richardson saying he probably only reads 5% of the tweets he gets.  I decided comparing the stream of information to a real stream was an apt analogy.  When I go for a hike and I watch the water tumble over the rocks in a stream, I don't get caught up in seeing ALL the water go past.  I watch until my mind is full and then I keep hiking.  So I need to think of this networking the same way.
Oh, yes, so you can find me on Twitter @HeddiCraft and on Google+ as Heddi Craft.