A module ends, a networked community continues

To mark the end of the year of CT231, I’d like to begin by thanking you — all of the students who participated in the module. We’ve covered a lot of ground this year.

Many of the terms above may have seemed unclear or irrelevant last September, but hopefully you feel much more confident now about your research skills, your communication  skills (writing and presenting) and — as many of you wrote in your social media reflections — your digital identity and use of social media, especially for learning.

Working with you all this year has been a pleasure, an adventure, and a great learning experience. Exploring concepts both established (academic writing skills, referencing) and emerging (digital identity, privacy, social networks for learning), your ideas and your questions have helped me to think more deeply about my own practices, about creating learning spaces (physical and virtual), and about the always-fascinating collisions between theory and practice.

All of the presentations which you’ve posted online are available in the CT231 Student Showcase on Scoop.it and also on Flipboard (and informal videos of some of these presentations are available on Bambuser). Links to your final Digital Media Projects have been posted here in the blog and in the CT231 Student Showcase. Other #icollab students, in other countries, are just beginning their terms. Some of these students will view your work on Scoop.it, Flipboard and Bambuser, some will provide feedback, and some may connect with you via social networks (check the #icollab hashtag any time). This is the essence of connected, authentic learning — not limited by modules, term times, geography or insititution. Enjoy it!

The same goes for our connections as well. As always, the #ct231 hashtag will be our main connection… across time and different social media spaces. So please continue to share using the hashtag. While activity on the @CT231 Twitter account will quiet down over the next few months, it will be active again when next year’s 2nd years start the module in September. You’ll continue to be part of the CT231 community, of course, so please feel free to interact with future students, share thoughts or resources, and join the conversations.

We began by sharing ideas and developing skills within our class community, and expanded our interactions to include others in the NUI Galway community and the #icollab community of practice. I have seen many of you use those skills and that confidence to begin networking with others on a broader scale, using Twitter and other social media in new ways — as students, researchers, and soon-to-be professionals. Your reflections throughout this process have been valuable and will help to inform my own future teaching. Thank you.

Images: CC Catherine Cronin