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Every year, for the last 6 or 7 years, I've started teaching my module on Learning Technologies, aimed at members of academic staff, by introducing them to twitter. We then use twitter as a tool throughout the module, sharing information and developing a community . Each year there are always one or two participants who are already twitter users, some people who have dabbled or lurk, and always a few who have never used twitter before. It can be a challenge to convince people to give twitter a try, because the value of twitter to an academic is only realised after a period of time spent engaging. Even building up a network takes time, and often it's not clear to the academic that the time invested now will pay any dividends. To that end, I was helped enormously this year by a short presentation from Jane Walsh ( @DrJaneWalsh ) who gave an engaging, often amusing and very persuasive talk on the value of twitter in her own research and teaching. Jane was a participant herself on ...

I've been using twitter for more than seven years, as many of my readers will already know. One of the most useful aspects of twitter, for me, involves tweeting at conferences - whether I am at the conference, or following a conference hashtag. As well as being part of the general conference discussion and backchannel, it also offers insight to an event beyond the traditional boundaries of location. How I use twitter at conferences If I am (physically) attending a conference, my usual style is to tweet key ideas, references, links, and photos of the speaker and his/her slides. More recently, since I'm trying to make written notes (yes - on paper) I will also tweet an image of my notes. I converse with other twitter users, who may be co-located at the conference, or not. I use my own twitter feed as a record of event, along with my notes. I often use storify to collate and share a record of all the event tweets. In particular, I use the photographs to remember useful information...

This is based on the original post by @derekbruff who has kindly given his permission to re-blog. It's an updated version of the #celt13 instructions , posted on this blog 2 years ago. Hello #celt15 twitter team (you know who you are) and thank you for agreeing to take part. We're looking forward to an active twitter stream at #celt15 again this year and you will play a big part in keeping the backchannel going. What does it mean to be on the #celt15 twitter team? Glad you asked.... Take a few moments at several points during the day (during keynotes, during sessions, whenever) to share highlights of the conference.  What are you learning?  What useful resources are you hearing about?  (Include links when you can!)  What questions or answers are occurring to you as you  participate in the conference? Don't forget to use the hashtag! It's #celt15 . You’re encouraged to tweet some photos of the conference. Having some photos in the Twitter steam ma...

On a Friday afternoon, just over a week ago, I started with a new group of participants on our Learning Technologies module, CEL263, part of the PG Diploma in Academic Practice offered at CELT. During  the module, we explore various technologies for teaching and learning. For the last number of years I've introduced twitter as a tool for communication as part of the course. Every year we have a few people who user twitter, some who have twitter accounts (but little more) and some who have never explored twitter at all. To motivate, participants can earn a Twitter Novice badge, awarded for completing a twitter profile and tweeting a few things using the #cel263 hashtag. I also maintain a twitter list , which includes all the people who have been enrolled on the module in the last 5 years - currently 61 people. They are not all active, but those who keep tweeting make a great contribution to the CEL263 weekly newsletter , which is full of news and articles all year round. So, that Fr...

Shortly before Christmas, I followed a #edchatie twitter chat. This twitter chat, for Irish educators, takes place every Monday evening. While I am aware of it, I don't normally participate, because 1) the time doesn't suit me, 2) active participants are mostly from primary or secondary education, with minimal HE discussion, 3) although I have an interest in primary and secondary education as a parent, I haven't felt encouraged to engage from that perspective. However, I do like to drop in from time to time. On this occasion, I introduced myself as usual, and said that I would be mostly lurking. I got an immediate response from @fboss , the convenor, who suggested that I should try to participate, and I agreed that I would. The topic on the evening was #whatilearntin2013 . The stream was full of positive reflections on the year. Maybe it was the time of year, end of semester blues, a particularly challenging year, or maybe I was just a bit down, but I could not think of a s...

Today I am looking forward to the start of our popular module on Learning Technologies, CEL263. This module forms part of our PostGraduate Diploma in Academic Practice, but can also be taken by academic staff as a stand-alone module. This year is the sixth time that it will be run, and we have an eclectic line-up of participants from across the university. I know it's going to be fun. The module is run as a series of 7 workshops, each on a different topic. While we explore lots of different technologies, the focus is on how the technologies can be used in a meaningful way to support teaching and learning activities. We always have a great mix of people, from technophobes to technophiles, and we all learn from each other. Our aim is to move each person out of their comfort zone, to try something new in a supported environment. As well as the face-2-face workshops, the module is supported by a Blackboard course, with resources and activities, as well as recordings of each workshop. I...

Earlier this month we had our annual Galway Symposium on Higher Education, entitled "Thinking Differently" - New Curricula, New Skills in Higher Education. Although the conference theme itself is not technology-focused, we did make use of technology to support and enhance the conference experience. Twitter Back in March, we agreed the twitter hashtag for the conference and I used Martin Hawksey's excellent Twitter Archiving Google Spreadsheet to start archiving all tweets using the hashtag. About 2 weeks before the conference itself, I enlisted the help of a twitter team, targeting people that I knew would be at the conference and giving them advice on how to keep the backchannel going . This meant that we had an active twitter stream before, during and after the conference, with about 850 tweets currently in the archive. The Archive Tool produces a complete archive and TagsExplorer , which lets you explore the connections between the people who are tweeting.  From this...

This is based on the original post by @derekbruff who has kindly given his permission to re-blog. Hello #celt13 twitter team (you know who you are) and thank you for agreeing to take part. We're looking forward to an active twitter stream at #celt13 again this year and you will play a big part in keeping the backchannel going. What does it mean to be on the #celt13 twitter team? Glad you asked.... Take a few moments at several points during the day (during keynotes, during sessions, whenever) to share highlights of the conference.  What are you learning?  What useful resources are you hearing about?  (Include links when you can!)  What questions or answers are occurring to you as you  participate in the conference? Don't forget to use the hashtag! It's #celt13. You’re encouraged to tweet some photos of the conference if you have that ability. Having some photos in the Twitter steam makes the conference experience more concrete for folks not there. F...

Today I asked my PLN to recommend a twitter app for the iPad, one that is good for multiple accounts. The results are collated in the storify embedded below. If you have any recommendations, please tweet them to me (@sharonlflynn) or comment below. [ View the story "Twitter app recommendations on iPad (via Twitter)" on Storify ] Tweet

I've decided to stick with my avatar. Here's why... (from Storify)   [ View the story "Hiding behind my avatar - follow up" on Storify ] Tweet

I joined twitter on 20th February 2009, three and a half years ago. At the time I was very skeptical; I had no idea of the effect twitter would have on my professional life or the wealth of contacts I would build up in my Personal Learing Network (PLN). Being a shy individual, an introvert in fact, I felt uncomfortable about using my own photograph for my profile image, so I chose an image that represented me: a cup of coffee. I do like good coffee, and sometimes tweet about it. The image certainly said something about me, as a person. I also felt somewhat protected, lurking on twitter, hiding behind my avatar, thinking I was unnoticed, anonymous in some way. The cup of coffee lasted for about 6 months, until I met @vonprond at a conference in Galway. In fact, Ferdinand was the first person I followed on twitter. He commented that I looked completely unlike my image: he'd been expecting a large cup of coffee. I realised that my perceived anonymity did not exist an...

This week, I've been preparing for the start of our Learning Technologies module - offered to academic staff as part of our Higher Diploma in Academic Practice at NUI Galway. I have blogged, in the past, about the wonderful work carried out by participants on the module, and we have done some initial investigations into the longer term impact of the module . Using the old twitter embed code Twitter is just one of the many tools we use as part of the module, both to support communication between participants, and for them to reflect on how they might make use of it in their own teaching practice. Since we also use Blackboard as our VLE, it's useful to bring the course twitter feed into the Blackboard course, to help link various strands together. In the past, embedding a twitter feed was not straightforward, but was certainly possible. A quick google search would bring up instructions, and allowed us to produce some nice results (see image). So, I was really delighted to see tha...

Using Martin Hawksey's twitter archiving google spreadsheet , we can now reveal the top tweeters at the 10th Galway Symposium: The Written Word - writing, publishing and communication in higher education . The conversation is still continuing, using the #celt12 hashtag . So far, we have archived more than 1000 tweets from the event. To see a visual representation of the archive, you can visit the Interactive Archive of #celt12 tweets (static image below). Click on any name to get a list of that person's tweets and interactions. A full archive of tweets , though it's not particularly pretty, is also available.   Tweet

This is based on the original post by @derekbruff who has kindly given his permission to re-blog for #celt12. Hello #celt12 twitter team (you know who you are) and thank you for agreeing to take part. We're looking forward to an active twitter stream at #celt12 this year and you will play a big part in keeping the backchannel going. What does it mean to be on the #celt12 twitter team? Glad you asked.... Take a few moments at several points in each day (during keynotes, during sessions, whenever) to share highlights of the conference.  What are you learning?  What useful resources are you hearing about?  (Include links when you can!)  What questions or answers are occurring to you as you  participate in the conference? Don't forget to use the hashtag! It's #celt12. You’re encouraged to tweet some photos of the conference if you have that ability. Having some photos in the Twitter steam makes the conference experience more concrete for folks not there. Fe...

Last week I spent 3 days at the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference . Since I came back, I find myself reflecting on the experience. At the time, it was a whirlwind of enthusiasm, inspiration and tweets . Now that I'm back at the day job, back in reality, I'd like to write down some reflections and share them. For me, PELeCON 2012 was all about making connections. Travel Connections For a start, there was the travelling. Last year, @catherinecronin and I travelled direct from Dublin to Plymouth, at a civilised time of the day. This year, unfortunately, travelling to Plymouth from Galway was a little more complicated. We had to fly to Bristol at the unfortunate hour of 6:40am from Dublin. This meant a stopover in one of the Dublin Airport Hotels, after a bus journey from Galway to Dublin. We met up with @crumphelen at Dublin airport, ready for the early morning flight. Once we arrived in Bristol, we got a bus to Bristol Mead train station, then a two hour journey by train to...

Last week we hosted the joint Galway Symposium/NAIRTL conference at NUIG, with the title Engaging Minds: Active learning, participation and collaboration in Higher education. Iain has already blogged about the event and the recordings of the keynotes will be available in the near future. As part of the local organisation, and having participated in a number of very active conference backchannels in the last year (for example #pelc11 ), we wanted to ensure an active twitter experience. This was particularly important because one of our keynotes, Derek Bruff from Vanderbilt University, has already written about Encouraging a Conference Backchannel on Twitter . The strategy we used was based on Derek’s guide. Here’s what we did: Hashtag : obviously, nothing can happen without a hashtag. It has to be short and easily remembered. With a joint conference, this can be tricky! So, I just proposed using #nairtl11, which was accepted, and it worked a treat! We started using this a couple of we...