Reddit: A cool source for your PLN

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