Becoming a PLPeep as social media strategist for Powerful Learning Practice

I've been working in social media for more than six years now, but I'm getting to take my skills to a whole new level with Powerful Learning Practice (PLP). PLP offers professional development to help educators incorporate social media and new technology in their classrooms. Since October, I've been serving as PLP's social networking strategist, managing Facebook, Twitter and the PLP Network Blog. I also get the opportunity to connect with PLP's learning communities online.

PLP offers a long-term, job-embedded professional development program to help educators better understand 21st Century learning environments. PLP's model enables thousands of educators around the country to experience the transformative power of the social Web: Face-to-face in their own schools, exchanging ideas through a community of inquiry and in re-envisioning their own personal learning practice.

So with PLP, I'm not just marketing with social media, I'm participating with social media. I'm directly connecting with educators who are learning to develop their own Personal Learning Networks through social media. I'm very excited to approach social media from this new perspective, and it's opened my eyes even more to the power of social media. I've used social media for learning and connecting with others for many years, and it's truly been priceless for my own personal learning and professional development. It's very rewarding to help educators do the same.

Two of my colleagues at PLP, co-founder Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall, recently published The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age, a book to help educators create a learning community through social media and take advantage of technology to improve their own learning and ultimately the learning of their students. This would be an excellent gift to share with any teachers in your life.

PLP also offers e-learning courses. There's a free Web 2.0 Tools eCourse that anyone (not just educators) can check out. Sign up and you’ll receive an email every day for two weeks with a Web 2.0 tool activity. At the end of the eCourse, you’ll be well on your way to being a Web 2.0 tools master and developing your personal learning network.

To learn more about Reina Communications' role at Powerful Learning Practice, check out my interview on the PLP blog.

RIP Steve Jobs, one of the world's greatest leaders and visionaries

I don't think I have ever felt so personally saddened by the loss of a public figure as I have today with the loss of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator and an inspiration to us all to "Think different." He changed the world by putting the tools in our homes and in our hands so we can all be innovators. 

I wanted to share an excerpt from Steve Job's epic 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

--Steve Jobs

We all owe it to Steve to use our MacBooks, our iPads, our iPhones and other devices to change the world for the better.

How to keep technology from complicating our lives

The pressure was on for me last week. As Google+ entered the social media sphere, I jumped on Twitter, Facebook and technology blogs to find an invite so I could check it out. As a social media consultant, it's my job to stay on top of the latest and greatest in social media, explore what's out there and get learning. Now, I'm faced with the dilemma of splitting my time with an additional social medium. Considering I'm checking at least 8 social networks daily and regularly reading countless RSS feeds and blogging, I started questioning how I was going make time for Google+ in my already technology-time-warped life of e-mails, text messages and all things Apple.

Technology is supposed to make everything easier, yet it often just complicates our lives. I realize this when I find myself interrupting a nice meal at a restaurant or a relaxing day at the beach by checking my iPhone incessantly.

Thankfully, I found an article about 10 Karmic Laws for technology, and it inspired me to get a grip on what's important and to keep it simple so that technology actually works for me (not the other way around!). Here are some highlights from the article:

Not all tweets are created equal

Tweeting or updating your Facebook status is pretty much like getting up on a stage in front of 100+ of your friends and acquaintances and saying something into a microphone...be sure to think twice about your intention and be respectful of your audience. A simple tip: don't over post -- not every thought that comes into your head needs to be shared.

Post in the past tense

Live your life, then share it. Here is an example: "I'm talking to the most amazing person in the elevator." Really? How can you be doing that when you're preoccupied tweeting about it? Instead, just enjoy the conversation. Forget there is a phone in your pocket or purse. Give yourself to that conversation. Then 10 minutes later, share the past tense variation "I just had the most amazing conversation with a women in the elevator!"

Give it a rest

Create a technology Sabbath! Choose a day of the week where you will not allow any electronic devices or media into your daily routine (outside of mandatory situations, like work).

When it comes down to it, much of the networking we're doing online is just taking time out of our lives to clutter the lives of our friends. Just because we have the ability to share every mundane thought of the moment doesn't mean there is a reason to. By limiting our time with and access to technology, we're forcing ourselves to value its use more and make better use of our limited time spent using it. So the answer is not in finding more time for technology, but in making sure each text, e-mail and post we create enhances our own lives or the lives of those we're connecting with.

If I live by these Karmic Laws, I'm pretty sure I'll reduce about half of the clutter I consume and produce using technology. And that makes time for me to take advantage of Google+ and anything else new that comes my way.