Manage Your Network

The idea of a Personal Learning Network has been around for a while.  Building your own network is certainly something I think is rather important.  However, once you build it, there is still work that needs to be done.  It’s very important to adapt your network to your needs.  As your network grows, so do your needs.  Some of those in your network will not be meeting those needs in ways that you had originally hoped.  You will find Twitter followers posting information that might be less valuable to you.  With Twitter, you can stop following or even block these people.  I believe the more quality people you are associated with the better.  Don’t feel as though you have “enough” followers or people you follow.  There are lot of great educators beginning their online journey with a lot of great information to share.  Add these people.

Blogging is an important of my network.  Recently, I spent some time updating my blog roll.  If you are using an RSS reader to keep track of blogs and blog posts, I recommend you update your list as well.  In addition, I post my blog roll on my blog.  It was very out of date.  When I looked at my reader recently, I noticed a number of blogs without new items.  After taking a closer looks at those subscriptions, I found that several stopped blogging.  As a result, I removed them from my reader.  I also realized that a blog was no longer meeting my needs.  The author began writing about K-12 issues, sharing resources for all levels.  However, recently, I found almost all of the content geared toward the high school level.  Since I’m not working in a high school, I stopped subscribing to the feed.  In addition, I worked on categorizing my feeds based on the topics of their blogs.  For me, I have two kinds, those related to school libraries, and those related to general education topics.  Unfortunately, the blog roll on my blog is listed in alphabetical order, but I’m not sure how to change that.

I often felt overwhelmed when I looked at the number of unread posts, which was often over 300.  I wondered when I’d ever get to that information.  Was I missing timely conversations?  After taking a closer look at my reader, I realized that two blogs were accounting for well over half of the unread material.  Larry Ferlazzo’s blog and Richard Byrne’s blog are two blogs that share a ton of information, with at least one post, if not more, per day.  For me, changing my subscription from an RSS feed to email worked wonders.  Now, I get an email when new posts come along, which I promptly look at.  In addition, the number of unread posts in my reader is much more manageable.  Maybe you want to consider subscribing to some of your favorite blogs by email.  If you’re like me, your email is checked a lot more often than your RSS reader.

Here’s a quick recap of how I helped manage my blog subscriptions – things I recommend you do as well:

• Check blogs that haven’t posted in a while.  Are the blogs still active? If not, drop them from your reader.
• Put your subscribed blogs into categories to help you organize the feeds.
• Consider subscribing to some posts via email.
• Make sure the content of the blog still meets your needs.

You’ve spent time building your network.  Take the time to manage it as well.