#phdchat meeting Edmonton

Sep 11 2011 Published by under PhD Studies

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#phdchat on Twitter has proven to be a great tool for networking with doctoral students and others worldwide. I look forward to the days when I meet some of these colleagues in person at conferences and other events. It is also nice to meet those whom are in the same community, and that has started to happen here in Edmonton.

Marguerite (@mkooleaday) and I have met previously through our respective affiliations with Athabasca University. She is studying through the University of Lancaster. Next to be added was Kari, studying at the University of Leicester. We were joined this time by Tristram (@pigironjoe), faculty at the University of Derby, and Sarah (@exigneresurgam) from the University of Alberta. I had the pleasure of meeting Tristram when I visited Leicester, and Sarah while attending the Teaching Development Week at the University of Alberta. Of course, I am from the University of Leicester.

What a lovely day it was, eating on the patio at Hudsons Canadian Tap House on 104 Avenue, also accessing their free wifi. Tristram is touring Canada on a study related visit, and others took time away from work, studies, and other activities to join.

Our meetings are being held every month or so, and we welcome others as our group grows. It is a chance to share what we are doing informally while building relationships in the academic community. I hesitate to use the terms ‘meetups’ or ‘tweetups,’ as we have not registered the group as of yet at meetup.com, and not all are necessary active on Twitter. Perhaps that is a topic for our next get-together.

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Microblogging, learning, and reflective writing

Mar 18 2010 Published by under microblogging

This discussion started with an excellent blog post by Yogesh Agarwal on The Upside Learning Solutions Blog, How to Use Microblogging in Workplace Learning. I provided a comment that linked microblogging, reflective writing, and increased informal learning. Yogesh respectfully replied, “Microblogging doesn’t help in reflective learning as content is limited to a small number of characters. It does help get link to some great resources or blogs.”

I also received a request from a Twitter follower, @ShellTerrell (Shelly Terrell), for a guest post on the topic. She kindly published the post, Do We Learn More through Microblogging?

So far, I’ve seen follow up tweets that support microblogging for the learning that does occur, and I’ve received a couple of private messages that specifically address reflective writing. I’m going to watch with interest over the next few days for any further comments.

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