I’ve limited my blog roll & RSS feeds (culling twitter follows too), to a select list, especially respected Australian educators, who provide a noise and quality assurance filter for relevant, to me, debates.

The elite list of “must follows” is a learning furphy and reminds me of sycophantic eduvoyuerism or edugroupyism rather than considered reflective (and individual) thinking.
Dogs chasing tales(sic) springs to mind.

There also seems to be a high GI diet of over participation (web2.0 noise for noises sake) versus individual focus on what we do best, learn and teach in classrooms using a full range of quality methods.

Thats why I won’t tell excellent (traditional) practioneers they MUST engage, it is an attitudinal shift they have to live and experience and apply to their own lives. Sure it frustrates me more teachers don’t engage but those that are provide sufficient inspiration at our place.

Calling anything “original thinking” is questionable and rare as most debate is remixed perspectives at best. Nothing wrong with that either, providing my filters are also improving. Those who do “create an original thinking box” are inspirational and my inner sanctum top shelf PLN soon lets me know.

My first, favourite and easiest tool is my delicious network. It is easy to see what shapes their research base underlying a person’s POV and PLN. Click on their tags and hey presto, research is quickly enhanced. Way better & more reliable than boolean Google for finding quality. Found so much more on assessment reform within 10 minutes that I’d never get from twitter, feeds, blogs or google in a year.

My recently Jenny Craiged Netvibes now has a new “Top 10 2009 PLN” tab. As a blog/feed/axis of doing good earns my repeat visits it gets migrated into that. Works well so far and noise has been reduced. May be missing lots of good stuff but I have found way more that aligns with my 2009 learning goals.

Reciprocate your axis off John, Watershed in on my PLN inner sanctum.
cheers
Tony