I was contacted this morning by Will Kelly, who is a Technical Recruiter/Account Manager in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. Will is looking for educators who could be hired for eLearning course development, and wanted to know if I had recommendations for good prospects. He found me via a Google search, apparently, for eLearning and distance learning.
My recommendation to him was to try Linked-In. I only have about 35 contacts presently on Linked-In, but many of those people are other educators involved with educational technology and in many cases, eLearning. It was nice to be able to recommend to Will, essentially, “Please access my network,” rather than have to think on the spot about people I know who:
- Have eLearning course development experience and interest
- Are job hunting or open to hearing about job possibilities
I like Linked-In because it is a much more professional feeling network with a sharper interface than sites like MySpace, and because it’s specifically focused on professionals sharing expertise and job leads. It was designed to be that way from the ground up, I think. MySpace, of course, was never designed to be a professionals organization– it started as a way for start-up bands to share their music and connect with fans.
If you haven’t joined Linked-In yet as one of your social networks, I recommend checking it out. You never know where networking leads could take you professionally! One of mine (a face-to-face networking lead, rather than an electronic one, however) led me to my current educational role in Oklahoma! 
As the old adage goes, what you know is important, but WHO you know can also be extremely important in life. Linked-In lets you specify how you want to permit other people to contact you, and the types of “opportunities” you are interested in receiving via the network. If you’re interested in hearing about new job offers or possibilities, you just specify that in your profile preferences. Then people don’t have to guess– they can see your experiences, interests, and whether or not you’re open to a new job or employment offer!
Thankfully, as Lee LeFever explains so well in his video tutorial “Social Networking in Plain English,” digital social networking is opening up many new, positive connections for people around the world.
The need we have for educators to understand the positive ways social networking is and can be used is something I discussed in the December 11th COSN/US Telecomm webinar, “Broadband Boot Camp for Educators.” There’s no better way to understand something fairly complex, like social networking, than by experiencing it personally in a positive context. There’s a big world “out there,” but personal connections and relationships within our world remain as important as ever. Digital tools which permit new types of connections and the maintenance of those connections (twitter is an example) are powerful influences on my life today, and I’m pretty sure their influence is only going to increase in importance in the years ahead.
Technorati Tags:
linkedin, jobs, employment, education, elearning, distancelearning, networking, socialnetworking, myspace, leelefever, commoncraft, video
On this day..
- Teaching is a moral calling (Will someone please tell Arne and Barack?) - 2011
- iPad Fever and 1 to 1 Learning Lessons from the Experts - 2011
- Favorite Picture Books About Maine - 2011
- Enabling YouTube Comment Moderation (Screenr Screencast Tutorial) - 2010
- A holiday lesson in ethics via Webkinz - 2009
- A blast back to my podcasting past - 2008
- Broadband Bootcamp for Educators - 2008
- We DO need other low cost alternatives to OLPC - 2008
- Scheduling a key to needed school reforms - 2006
- Downhill Battle - 2006
