Choosing The Right Tool For The Job

As one begins to assemble their various networks and communities, it's important to be as efficient as possible. Therefore, I once again turn to The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age, a book by Lani Ritter Hall and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, in which the lens of teaching is used to help readers find the resources they need to make a cohesive network.

The Connected Educator begins with a way to collect information, the use of bookmarks and tagging. These tools, which let you save sources of information for later or mark them as valuable websites, are generally best for assembling your own person database. However, the book goes on to mention several mediums through which you can share your own bookmarks and tags, becoming a curator of information for those in your network. For me, though, utilizing these tools will only serve to make sorting information easier. I already save links of resources ranging from podcasts to lectures on sports commentary, but using built in systems makes far more sense.

Next, The Connected Educator delves into sources of information, specifically calling out blogs. The key draw of blogs is the personal touch and insight many creators imprint onto their posts, as well as the format that promotes interaction through comments and questions. However, the hidden gem in this section for me is RSS Readers, a tool that lets you amalgamate all your blogs and new into one feed, a bit like social media apps do with their timelines. For me, blogs centered around Esports and sports commentary are rare, but with RSS Readers, I finally have a way to keep up. Using their customizable   nature, I can make a RSS Reader that gives me the latest on any Esports news and, whenever I find a good blog, I can always add it to my personal algorithm in order to give me a bit more perspective.

The final tools The Connected Educator explores are ones I am all too familiar with as a student, vehicles for direct or indirect collaboration such as Wikis or Google Docs. These tools provide real-time edits and can let people work together for something as small as a worksheet and as large as an entire database housed on a wiki. For someone working in Esports, in which most people are working remotely from across the planet, these tools are game changers. Together we can write out schedules, personnel sheets, and anything else we'll need to improve our event. I use these now, and I still expect to use them as long as I stay in this business. 

As I conclude my summary, one major obstacle still remains; no one uses most of these tools in my field. I checked as I was writing this post. There are no tags on any bookmarking communities like Diigo, few podcasts that I don't already listen to, and zero wikis as far as I can tell. However, I will still network with what I have. Twitter, the micro-blogging platform that remains the center of all Esports related talk, has features like Lists I can use to mimic many of these tools. I can still bookmark as many resources as I can find. Applying these tools won't be straightforward, but I'm confident taking the time to learn them will pay dividends in the long run.