CPD thing 4: Becoming aware

As I mentioned before, I already have a Twitter account which I set up on my graduate trainee year but have never used. I went to log back into it and couldn't remember my user name or password..... not helpful. So I have created a new one. I had difficulty in choosing my user name because, as discussed in thing three, my personal brand is not very specific yet. I went for @22lucyjane because Lucy Jane is the name I use mostly online. I don't really use my surname much online, though I'm starting to think perhaps I should as it's much more recognisable than Lucy Jane.

Twitter is something I feel could be very useful but slightly addictive, hence my slight delay in making it a part of my life so far. I am an information sponge, I love to learn and I love keeping up to date with current affairs and news. RSS feeds are great, I have used them a little before but not as well as I think I could.
My current awareness so far has mostly been supplemented by reading newspapers and websites. But I usually go to them and source the information myself. The prospect of having up to date information fed to me through Twitter and RSS feeds, on a whole host of topics I'm interested in, seems quite exciting but also daunting. I don't want to be overwhelmed with information I don't need or am not interested in and miss out on the things I do want to read. I think am going to experiment with adding just a few feeds to my google reader page and following just a few Twitterers (is that a word?) and see how I go.

It is difficult to do much of this thing four at work because our firewalls, like many other FE colleges, do not allowing social networking sites to be used. However, I have installed Twitter on my phone and can use it on there. Pushnote is yet to be explored, but I intend to give it a go soon.