Digital social networking is a game changer in the learning landscape. It is an invention that amounts in its importance and usefulness to the big inventions that marked all mankind history. In ancient times, cultures, in the absence of any established sign language to encode its content, were orally based. Storytelling was the major vehicle to pass on the human legacy from one generation to the other. Stories constituted the basis of collective learning and now with this rapid uptake of social media networks and their widespread , the notion of collective learning has been revived. There are several communities and affinity spaces where people get to meet and learn from each other irrespective of their geographical locations, race, ethnicity, and gender. The web is teeming with professional learning networks that span a wide variety of disciplines and interests and that, so often, open to anybody to jump in and participate in knowledge building. The potential of social networking sites in education is huge and we need to capitalize on it to enhance our professional development and consequently improve the quality of our instruction. Searching for articles on this topic , I came across Doug Johnson's post on the 10 social media competencies for teachers. I like the competencies Doug included and decided to make an infographic featuring all of these skills. Have a look and share with your colleagues. I spent several hours working on this infograhic, If you like it and want to use it on your blog or website please credit Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.
