On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Gerry Mckiernan <gerrymck@iastate.edu> wrote:
Pronetos is home to communities of every academic discipline - a global think-tank of the leaders in every field. Pronetos makes it easy for scholars to stay connected with thier colleagues, wherever they may be. Pronetos is a place for scholars to network, and build and share ideas with the greatest minds in their field
I've just had a look at their site & they're claiming to have 335 members. It's reminded me that I joined something else a while ago, set up, I think, by Nature - which is aimed at "scientists". I've also joined a few educators social networks - but the only one that I'm active in is Eduspaces (despite all rocky times its had since December - now, hopefully sorted out) I've also had invitations to assorted networking tools - how do people decide which to join, and which to particpate in? And what about the sort of site I tend to view FAcebook as - the "blackhole" type - which makes it much easier to bring in external information than it does to let out information to someone on another network. I'm sure that there is some research done on it, but for now I'm more interested in anecdotes - just what's made you decide to join what you've joined, to continue & to not bother. For me: Eduspaces - I like the software ; and most users are (or were at the time, not quite so much now) Educational technologists or related. There are quite a few people on it who I know anyway & others I've met since. Facebook. I really don't like it; but I've got quite a few people I know who do, and due to it's blackholeness, I find I have to join to keep up with them. As I'm interested in student use of Social Networking, I kind of have to be there! I tend not, however, to join things - especially if I have a feeling that someone has invited me without really knowing whether or not I'm likely to want to join it. I'd rather join communities there that seem interesting to me. Ning. I've joined a few communities, but haven't been there for ages; mostly because in many ways it's even more blackholey than Facebook. I have to login for every community - I can't have a picture of everything I do - never mind following friends across communities. (unless they've changed, it's a while since I've been there) Of course, that could be useful if you like to keep work/ social communities etc., separate. (Which I do; but tend to do it by having most of my social activities either via email lists, or off line) Sorry for a longish email! It's what happens when you have a cold & haven't gone away this weekend - & there's rubbish on TV! -- Emma Duke-Williams: School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator. Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/