Update on #OpenTeachingOU Hashtag: Happy!

So, just a quick post here to say that I am really happy with this hashtag I have started using, #OpenTeachingOU. Given the hectic time at the beginning of the semester, with all the work I'm doing to get ready for classes, I haven't had time to be keeping up with my news rounds-ups, etc., but the #OpenTeachingOU hashtag is a way that I can label tweets and posts and items at Google+ so that they don't get lost in my online space which is full of teaching stuff, yes, but also full of LOLCats and Indian images etc. etc. So, the hashtag is proving to be a really good way for me to think about open teaching as I participate in these online spaces each day, and that is a good thing to be thinking about!

I'm also REALLY grateful to know about the ClassicRetweet extension for both Chrome and Firefox since that allows me to add the hashtag when I retweet. :-)

Of course, most of all I am hoping... especially after Jim Groom came and worked his magic at the Tech Expo on Friday... that the #OpenTeachingOU hashtag might catch on! There are all kinds of people and programs at OU that are moving, slowly or quickly, in the direction of open teaching and connected learning, so in addition to just using it for my own curation purposes, I'll also keep hoping that the hashtag will serve a more social purpose too.

Below is the HTML clippings feed for the #OpenTeachingOU hashtag via Inoreader (see it on a page of its own ... and here's the RSS). That's a bit different than the widget in the sidebar of this blog: in the sidebar, you are just seeing the Twitter stream for the hashtag, but Inoreader is pulling anything with #OpenTeachingOU, which means all the blogs I am subscribed to, plus my Google+ stream, along with Twitter. Inoreader searches through all that stuff with a rule I created, and then it combines the matching results into a new consolidated RSS feed.  Plus, I can add that label manually to items I find in Inoreader myself if I want to pull them into the RSS feed for OpenTeachingOU. So powerful! I am really enjoying the different uses I find for Inoreader, and this is a good one. :-)