Reddit: A cool source for your PLN

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I like to use the Reddit forums to turn up cool things on productivity, education, teaching, and also to follow my favorite technology shows on Twit.tv. (Forums follow this format – reddit a forward slash and r another slash and the forum like this one http://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/ ) But Reddit can be clunky, so I found a great app called Alien Blue that lets you easily drill down, comment, and vote up or down the things that you like and find and subscribe to different channels.

I've grabbed some screenshots to show you how this looks. While I don't check reddit every day, I get on the forums at least once a week. Breaking tech news often breaks there before it “breaks” in mainstream media and I've found it an increasingly influential place where people “in the know” hash things out and vet stories before they are ready for prime time. If you want to be part of this process, I recommend you join reddit. I'm coolcatteacher over there too if you want to connect.

(If you want to know how I annotated these photos, I took screenshots on my ipad by pressing the power and home button at the same time, which sent it to my photo gallery. Then, I took it into Skitch (which also lets me send all of these annotated photos to Evernote.) You'll also see why I TYPE so much (my handwriting isn't so great.))

Note that you can also create your own communities on reddit. I'm not sure how that would look with students but am sure those students would have to be over 13.

Also note that there is a bit of “noise” on reddit so you'll find JUNK and BUNK and a little bit of FUNK but the cool stuff I find is very very cool and leading edge (shall I say it gets me CRUNK? OK, it rhymes but I don't get hip hop ;-)

Also remember that even if you don't add anything yourself that you should always vote up or down because that is what you do when you share and are part of a community. If you're a spammer – trolls get called out pretty often, so beware hyping yourself.

Join me on reddit. Let me know your experience, I'm curious how other educators like the site.

Written by Vicki Davis, author – Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds – Posted with Blogsy from my iPad

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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