Dear #LTHEchat commuity,

It has been a truly fascinating year! There won’t be a tweetchat now until September. Yes, the #LTHEchat is on holiday during July and August and we look forward to swimming in the deep blue sea… at least some of us 😉 There will be opportunities to engage in Summer activities linked to the #LTHEchat, if you are interested and also feel free to organise community #LTHEchat while we are away.

We would like to thank you for all your support and engagement in the #LTHEchats since October 2014. Special thank yous go to our many guest facilitators who embraced the chats as a way to connect their thoughts and practices with the wider community. It has been a real pleasure to have such vibrant discussions with you all.

We would like to use this opportunity to share some facts about the #LTHEchats for 2014/15

• Our first ever chat was on the 29th of October 2014
• There have been 30 chats in total, 2 of which were organised by the #LTHEchat community
• We had 22 guest facilitators
• In some of the chat we had over 700 tweets within one hour.
• 2 Golden Tweeter awards

The steering group decided that it would be useful to have a summer break so that we can all recharge our batteries in preparation for the next academic year.

The #LTHEchat steering group, decided to introduce a rotating #LTHEchat organising team. This new structure will enable the community to take a more active role in the #LTHEchats and co-shape future direction together with the steering group. Members of the organising team will work closely together during a semester to secure the smooth running of the #LTHEchats.

We would like to become more systematic in the following:

• collecting data
• evaluate the initiative
• attract more students as participants and facilitators

The first organising team responsible for the #LTHEchats from Sep 15 to Jan 16 consists of the following members:

• Sue Beckingham, Sheffield Hallam University, @suebecks
• Dr Jenny Fisher, Manchester Metropolitan University, @jennycfisher
• Neil Withnell, University of Salford, @neilwithnell
• Chris Rowell, Regents University London, @Chri5rowell

A booklet of Year 1 of the #LTHEchat is in preparation.

There is also an opportunity to co-author an article about the #LTHEchats for a special issue around the use of Twitter in Education. If you would like to find out more and express interest to participate in this project, please access the related Google Doc.

Please complete our short survey if you haven’t done this already. Access this here.

A Summer Co-learning Opportunity

… and would you like to participate in a 5-day open learning event in July (13th-17th) where you will meet many colleagues from the #LTHEchat community?

Have a look at FOS! We will be using a playful enquiry-based approach to learn together more about flexible, open and social learning. The community space is already live.

image source https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5482/9622067329_3c5103a4a8_z.jpg

We wish you all a super (summer) break wherever you are and see you again on the 23rd of  September!

Chrissi, Sue, Peter and David

The #LTHEchat steering group