There has been quite a lot written about google+, and how it is the same / different to twitter / facebook / blogging / everything else. This is just my attempt to clarify in my mind how I might be using it in the future, and how it fits for me with all of the above.
Let just start by saying I don't facebook. I've never felt the need to particularly. On the whole I stay in touch with real friends by email phone and text, so have never really seen the point.
I could ramble on for ages, but this is how i see things panning out for me...
Twitter will continue to be the main form of sharing ideas and engaging in conversations. I like its openness, and that many people will see - you may get responses you don't expect and that challenge your thinking, and that is a good thing.
For me, circles are the usp for google+. I envisage using it as a collaborative tool at school, using circles as a way to direct and focus conversations. Assuming I can persuade enough people to sign up (and I've already got our new eLearning coordinator on side, which is a good start) here is how I hope it might look soon.
A Maths circle, containing my team. We already use GDocs readily, but a forum we can discuss things could be really powerful
A Year team circle. If all Y11 tutors and our HoY belong to a circle then issues discussion points etc can be raised in between meetings.
A maths management circle of me with my TLC's.
An eLearning group circle.
Some might (will) say that this can all be done through forums on our VLE, but circles offers something different to this. If I am discussing Y11 exams with the maths circle I can post it to the Y11 team also. The VLE doesn't support this (I don't think).
To summarise...
Facebook isn't (currently) for me
Twitter is for open chat, albeit with a professioanl focus.
Blogging is for reflection, a place to publish thought out and slightly more polished thoughts.
Google+ is for collaboration, both in real time (with huddles, which i haven't played with yet) and as a forum that allows cross pollination between circles.
I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on all of the above.
Thank you for giving me some idea of how to organise my circles. ATM I've just got a list of folks who have me in their circles. I'm going to give myself some time to think about it all. I have a FB page but don't really know how to use it & have promised myself I'll learn about Google+!
ReplyDeleteYes Chris, I believe that Facebook is for your personal
ReplyDeleteand real life friends you can interact with given the time
constraints in our lives.
Twitter allows me to exchange ideas n views with people
sharing my interests and likes. There is a lot of knowledge transfer and of course it is all voluntary. I love Twitter for that.
Google+, I am trying it at the moment as well but I feel that it is just an extended version of Twitter n Facebook garbled together. I installed it for the only fact that I am a Google man.
Overall, my vote goes to Twitter as I am continuously learning something new on my interests from like minded people including yourself n Julia.
Think you twitter, Thank you God.
Peace
Vijay(@bucharesttutor)