Streamified For: Educators

In case you haven’t noticed, we at Streamified are big fans of Web 2.0 technologies like blogs and social networks and we hope you are too! We wanted to share a few ways that certain users may be able to use Streamified to more easily keep up with the information that’s important to you. Today, I (Justine) will be talking about how Streamified can help educators get the most out of Web 2.0.

If you work in education, you may have heard of a “professional learning network (PLN)” once or twice, and you likely have had some kind of experience with “professional development” before. A PLN consists of colleagues, many in your same teaching area, who can be counted on as resources to you. As a friend from my own PLN, Julie Manfredi, describes it,

I have heard the acronym PLN used as both a Professional Learning Network and a Personal Learning Network – I like to think that it’s a combination of both. My PLN is full of wonderful people that are willing to answer questions, give advice and share resources, as well as offer a kind word or listen to one of my rants.

So, what does this have to do with Web 2.0 and, even, Streamified?

Glad you asked! Blogs and social networks (especially when the posts on said social network make use of hashtags, like #edchat), are a great way to share ideas. In fact, much of the discourse that makes an online PLN really great – lesson ideas, questions and answers, commiserating about a rough day at school, etc. – takes place on social media.

At first, you’ll have to do a bit of the work yourself to build your PLN. Here’s some quick suggestions:

  • Find fellow educators on Twitter and adding them to a Twitter list or two
  • Find interesting related blogs and add them to your Google Reader account
  • Start your own blog and share it with friends in your PLN
  • Join some Twitter chats like the previously-mentioned #edchat; this is a great way to build your PLN (here’s a list of a few more education-related Twitter chats)

Once you’ve started to build up your Twitter following as well as cultivate a great list of blogs in your Google Reader, that’s where Streamified can really shine - especially if you’d like to use Streamified specifically for your PLN.

Here are some suggestions that can help you keep track of the information coming to you from your PLN:

  • Add a Twitter account to your Streamified username. Your timeline is enabled to show up in Streamified by default, but if you’d solely like to view posts from your PLN Twitter list, disable your timeline and enable the specific list(s). You can even set up notifications for new posts from your list, if you’d like.
  • Add your Google Reader account to keep up with your favorite blogs. If you have a lot of blogs added to Google Reader, some unrelated to your PLN, you may want to try only enabling certain blogs to show in Streamified. Just click or tap to enable or disable blogs as you go. You can even set up notifications for posts from specific blogs whose posts you don’t want to miss.
  • Add LinkedIn to keep track of your connections’ statuses and update them on what’s going on with you.
  • If you’re a fan of Google+, try out our browser extension (available from our website). This will make the streams you’ve added to your username available for reading and posting in your Google+ homepage. Note that you do not have to add Google+ as a stream to your Streamified account if you want to use this feature.
  • Bookmark posts that you’d like to remember by tapping or clicking on the S icon in the upper-right corner of every post. Your bookmarks will sync from platform to platform so any posts you bookmark on mobile will sync back to when you’re checking Streamified in your browser, and vice versa – just navigate to your Bookmarks stream.
  • Add a save-later stream like Instapaper, Readability, or Pocket to save interesting links for later. Navigate to your save-later stream in Streamified to see the list of links you’ve saved (please note that this feature isn’t available for free users of Instapaper, due to their limitations).

In order to reap the benefits of your PLN, make sure to also interact with your network as well. Here are some ways to do just that – and if you’re a premium user of Streamified, track clicks on your content right in Google Analytics.

  • Streamified’s cross posting tools will help you update as many or as few of your accounts whenever you’d like. You can share…
    • Interesting links you saw in your streams
    • Articles you saved in your save-later stream
    • Y our very own blog posts with your network
  • Built-in support for engagement, like retweeting/quoting on Twitter and Tumblr and liking and commenting on Facebook allow you to join the conversation right from Streamified.
  • Streamified has support for replying to tweets as well as sending Direct Messages (DMs), too - just input “d username your-message-here” into the Composer and select solely the Twitter account you’d like the DM to come from. In order to check your incoming DMs, just go to the choose-a-stream menu, tap or click on the arrow to the right of your Twitter account, and select Messages, too.

Hopefully, you’re starting to see how Streamified is an excellent tool for managing the flow of information that comes with engaging with a PLN. Why don’t you give it a try? Download Streamified from our website and let us know how it goes. We’re ready to support you at GetSatisfaction, too, if you have any questions or issues with Streamified that you’d like to have answered. Lastly, keep in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Happy Streaming!

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