20K School Leaders from around the world - my experience of LinkedIn
Daniel Sobel
Founder of IFIP, Inclusion Expert, Global Inclusion Awards, Author, Key Note Speaker (40K+ followers, 30K+ links) can have no more links so please follow and I'll follow you back!
I didn't intend to connect with 20K school leaders from around the world via linkedIn, it happened. I was just pausing to think how it came about and what the value has been. Here are a couple of musings which may support your efforts on LinkedIn and explain a bit about mine.
I started just posting
There were a few levels of realization I had from 'just posting' to my approach today. Initially, I just posted 'news about Education'. After a while I thought that this 'service' was limiting my capacity to engage with people and for me to ask questions and discuss educational ideas. It became a chore which only every so often led to a reward of a meaningful discussion.
Provoke, Amuse and Support
I landed on 3 different types of posts which seemed to be the most successful and by that I mean useful or provoking of discussion:
1) Amuse - simple teacher and classroom-based humor some of which is clever and witty and some a bit slapstick. I think laughter is the greatest of all natural healers. A popular example was:
I was interested in provoking discussion beyond the usual which you often get on LinkedIn which centers around feeling particularly sorry for someone or equally angry about something. I wanted to try and dig into pedagogy and see what people could teach me. An example was:
Finally, I wanted to support colleagues by providing useful ideas and resources for professional development and especially for the purpose of promoting understanding and skills for inclusive practice. This has become my most common type of post and one that I think has made a genuine contribution to teachers and students.
Final Thoughts
I have written books and online courses and I seem to spend my whole life nowadays speaking around the UK and various countries. LinkedIn has been a forum for me to learn and listen, for me to ask questions and to test ideas out there. I read every comment and learn. It has become the perfect professional development for me. I have also had extensive discussions with people from all over the world and continued on Skype and meeting up in person. My personal network has increased manifold and in so doing, I hope the quality of what my team and I offer to schools has as well.
I want to thank some really warm and supportive colleagues who have championed me along. I want to thank my wife for allowing me the time to dedicate to my posts. I am just finishing off my next book and I have used quite a few of the ideas I have put into my posts. Here's to my next 20K links...
Helping schools share how they get the best outcomes for their students. We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning. Founder.
6 年Thank you for this, Daniel. Really interesting. I spent a while trying to figure out how to solve teacher isolation through networking. It's interesting how different groups of teachers use different platforms in different ways. I notice your twitter following is relatively modest in comparison to LinkedIn. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of each platform (for teachers)?
Small Schools Champion (Consultant, Coach, Speaker, Author)
6 年Thank you for this post- very timely for me! And I appreciate your identification of the most beneficial types of posts. This inspires me to be more active on this platform!
Founder of IFIP, Inclusion Expert, Global Inclusion Awards, Author, Key Note Speaker (40K+ followers, 30K+ links) can have no more links so please follow and I'll follow you back!
6 年Avrohom A. Prero ?????????
Certified Mental Health Professional, Addictions Counselor(BHG), Behavioral Health Coach, Proprietor of Windsong, Music: Piano, Guitar and Voice Teacher, Fellow of the Quadrivium - Classical Music (Cambridge University).
6 年Wonderful article ! I am discovering my LinkedIn experience to be far more meaningful in regard to collaboration with colleagues than any other social media site. It's a grand "pooling" of knowledge and insight- we gain information from sources around the globe - raising our cultural and social awareness. Keep up the posting and thank you for sharing your thoughts , experiences and humor with us all!
The ability to engage and have meaningful conversations around issues that affect not just educators but us parents too has been of incredible value. Look forward to your posts. Have been incredibly enlightening. Thanks for all your efforts.