Trying to find ways to manage information overload

I am an intensely curious person, with a strong, bordering-on-obsessive need to learn as much as I can on any topic that piques my interest. It’s actually not enough for me to just get a surface-level look at something, unless I decide it’s boring or of no use to me. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Annoying, really. I’m aware of this and I can’t help myself, and the only thing that stops me from trying to soak up everything is the limited time that I have in my day to attend to, oh, LIVING.

I have a feeling I’m not alone, and in fact it’s probably a very common affliction. So, what can I do about this?

Lately I’ve started working on a presentation for my team about how we can extend our reach into the internal and external communities with the education we currently produce, and encourage the use of social learning tools that are currently available in the environment. Seems like learning 2.0 is a big buzz word for progressive companies these days, and it’s only going to get bigger. As employees who need to actually WORK and PRODUCE during our 8 hours at the office each day, how do we keep up with learning? More importantly, how can we retain and apply this new knowledge?

It all boils down to time and efficiency. I should list out all of the tools I’ve used in the past for learning, to help me get a better sense of the big picture. Maybe I can learn a little about my own fact-finding, knowledge-seeking habits.

Using PBworks (PBwiki)

I’ve always believed in using web 2.0 tools for collaboration and communication. It’s just so much more efficient and effective than traditional tools like whiteboards and email.

Just yesterday I was explaining to a friend how wikis work. It’s weird how the concept of the wiki has been out for a very long time now, and yet it seems there are still a lot of people that have not yet heard of it. Originally I think it was just a way for people to access, create, and update a bunch of web pages as a group, but I think the founder of PBworks explains really well on the PBworks blog how this concept has really evolved: “The product has evolved well beyond the definition of a ‘wiki’. What we have now is not just some user-friendly generic wiki; it’s an increasingly full-featured hosted collaboration environment, used by tens of thousands of companies around the world to get their work done.”

And that’s why I love wikis. I recently set up a couple of wikis using PBworks and have found it was a really great place to asynchronously collaborate with my cohorts. At work, we’ve used other wiki services that have worked almost as well (I still like PBworks best so far). I can upload files, organize files and pages in my own folder structure, and track changes to any of the content using RSS feeds.

I wish I had this tool when I was a student. I wonder just how much further I could have gone in my learning if I could have used a wiki to share my notes and ideas with fellow students. But why wish? As adults we’re constantly learning, and certainly in the world that I’m in (web, media, and elearning development), it can be an invaluable tool for sharing information between like-minded peeps.

Twittering

Lately I’ve been really hooked on Twitter.

My first impression of Twitter, before I tried it out, was that it would be a complete waste of time for people that have a strange need to air out their personal lives, and for voyeurs who have a need to know what others are doing on a daily basis. I was proven wrong when I realized that it could be used instead as a social learning tool.

As a person that is generally curious in nature with a huge appetite for learning and a desire to contribute to the overall knowledge pool on the web, I am finding Twitter to be an invaluable source of new tidbits of info. Unlike blogging on the usual blog sites, which can take a lot of time and thoughtful writing, Twitter is an excellent alternative that frees you up from having to think too hard about your posts and allows you to just get to the point in 140 characters or less. I love it!

As soon as I created my account, I downloaded Twhirl to use as a desktop (AIR) app for twittering, and so far it’s worked out really well. For the first few days, I enjoyed seeing new tweets popping up in the corner of my screen — it wasn’t too much of a distraction, and in a way I felt like I was multi-tasking because I was working and staying up-to-date with new information at the same time. It’s starting to get to be a bit much though, the links that people are sharing are becoming a little TOO inviting, so I think I’m going to back off for a bit.

Twhirl

I just downloaded TweetDeck (also an AIR app) on a recommendation by Nick Floro in his really informative webinar on social media today. It’s a little more usable than Twhirl, at first glance anyways, as it allows you to switch from a single-column view of the latest tweets to a three-column view that also displays replies and direct messages. The notifications are much smaller and appear in the top right corner of your screen, which I like.

TweetDeck

LearningTown

If you haven’t seen LearningTown yet, go visit it at http://www.learningtown.com/. I just signed up as a member today, and have found some really great discussion going on in the world of education. I’ve already put up a couple of posts in there myself…I think it’s going to get a bit addictive.

Facebook: A learning tool?

Currently I’m going through a list of top 100 tools for learning, trying to find some new tools that may be useful. Facebook was rated #18 on the list. Personally, I’m not yet convinced that it is really all that useful for learning. A little while ago, I finally decided to create an account on Facebook to see if it was really all that applicable to learning (it was something I resisted for a very long time…sometimes I just don’t want to be “found”). In the apps directory, I found 988 different apps listed under the Education category! Sounded promising at first, and then I took a good look at what was there. Turns out it was just full of silly quizzes and word/quote/tip of the day apps. A few of them looked interesting though:

• SciBook: “SciBook is a social networking application just for life scientists. Users can show off their publication list on their profile page, share papers that they are reading, and connect with other scientists with similar interests.”
• HeyMath! Challenge: “HeyMath! is a library of mini-movies in flash that visually explain hundreds of difficult Math concepts – including Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus and a whole lot more.”
• BookTag: “BookTag is an easy and fun way to organize your book collections. It is designed to be simply useful for people who like reading. You can record what you’re reading, tag any books, or create a list for a collection of books. You can also rate, review and see what your friends are reading.”

I suppose if it was easy to develop these apps, then we could be creative and think of other ways to use Facebook to educate. I might venture into the Facebook developers site later on and see what this would involve.