Social productivity is going to need some time to catch on

Beth Kanter has a great post over on her blog about personal productivity versus social productivity. I definitely feel the crunch some times between staying in touch and getting work done. That's why Google Reader changed the way I read the web. I also liked her idea of screen-capping her desktop so I copied it for this post!

But I do agree that social productivity is a real phenomenon. I've felt it's power not just with wikis but also with the effectiveness of maintaining a group of contacts who share ideas and goals. I posted previously on doing this with Skype.

I think though that this concept is going to take some time to catch on in schools. Generally we frown on Facebook and chatting as frivolous at best. I'm curious about how a truly social networked school or class would function differently from a non-networked one.

Maybe I'll have to try that out with the class I'm teaching in the fall?