Brain Based Learning

So, you’ve finally set up a LinkedIn profile, figured out Twitter, and decided whether or not you’re going to friend your students on Facebook (you’re not – right???). Now Google+ has joined the picture, and there’s yet another social media platform to learn. Is it worth the effort? What does Google+ have to offer an educational institution (or any non-profit organization)?

I see two potential uses for Google+ when it comes to education (and non-profit organizations in general):

1. Video conferencing is still in it’s infancy. Trying to lead a group chat via video, so you can meet with your class, can be tricky. There are few free options, and most of them are limited to 3 participants. Even if you do have access to a paid service such as Adobe Connect, chat participants can have trouble making and maintaining video and/or audio connections. Often, what should be a quick chat turns into an hour long struggle to finish a sentence. Google+ includes a feature called hangout that seems a much more intuitive, and fluid, way to video chat with multiple people.
2. Facebook is a great way to connect with friends, and Twitter is a great way to meet and engage with professional colleagues. Many people have built a PLN using Twitter to communication in real time with educators around the world. When you want to take the relationship further though, with individuals that you’ve befriended through Twitter, Facebook can be a little too personal. And LinkedIn just doesn’t encourage the same level of interaction that Facebook does. Here is where Google+ steps into the gap – it encourages Facebook-like conversations among many people, but with easy-to-use Circles it’s much more appropriate to add both personal and professional friends. Therefore, I see Google+ becoming the “professional” Facebook.

Bottom line: Will Google+ replace any of your current social networking efforts? Probably not, sorry. However, it will add a new level to your professional interactions and expand your PLN.

So where does this leave the current state of social media? Will Google+ replace Facebook; will Twitter become the most useful PLN for educators; will all of these social networks go the way of MySpace when the next big thing comes along? I think it all comes down to using the right tool for the right job, and each new social media platform (yes, there will be new socmed platforms and services, we haven’t seen the end of it yet!) will have to add some new feature that others do not offer. For Google+, these “killer” features are Hangout, and Circles.

While Facebook seems the best way to network with friends, LinkedIn seems the best way to connect with people you may not know at all but have something in common with professionally, and Twitter seems the best way to find and learn from other people in your field, when it comes to connecting with colleagues in a more personal way than either Twitter or LinkedIn allow Google+ is the right tool for that particular job.

Tags: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, PLN, social networking, Twitter, video conferencing