Honestly and truly, I love to learn in a really nerdy, I can’t get enough new thinking into my brain, kind of way. Though I don’t consider myself to be very smart, I’ve always managed to find a way to hang out with the cool kids who are. That’s why I just can’t get enough Twitter.

My PLN (Personal/Professional Leaning Network) consists of people who really know their stuff and generously share it with the world. Not only do they find great articles and websites to explore, they create new material on a regular basis. Educators familiar with Blooms Taxonomy know that “Create” has recently been moved to the top of the pyramid of intellectual behavior. It used to be enough to “Evaluate,” but now you must do something that newly acquired intellectual motherlode. The internet provides the perfect milieu for sharing newly created knowledge.

This is the age of information overload, but I don’t have to read it all, analyze it all, evaluate it all or even create it all because my Twitter PLN works together to do all of that. If you think Twitter is about what you had for breakfast or where you can find really cool shoes are on sale, you are missing out on the power of the Twittersphere.

It’s easy to establish a Twitter network. Create a Twitter account–it only takes a few minutes and despite the burden of another user name and password,  it’s painless. Take the time to create a short bio and add a picture of yourself. Then use the search tool to find just a few people from your areas of influence you admire, and try to locate them on Twitter. Follow them. Once you do that, you see who they follow. Add those folks as people you follow, too. Talk to peers who are using Twitter and find out their user names. By following them you will have even more access to local folks to follow.

If I have shared a link with you over the past few years that made you see the world through a new lens, it most likely came from my Tweeps. If you’re eager for a place to start, you are welcome to follow me: @LindaReed (and yes, I did sign up for this service so long ago that my very common name was available as a username). I have had few Professional Development experiences (with the exception of the #Boothbay Harbor Literacy Retreat) that cause me to think as deeply as do my Tweeps. They are awesome and generous, and of course, smart.