What is FLNchat?

Welcome!
You have found the blog home of the Flexible Learning Network, soon to be host of the bi-weekly Twitter chat #FLNchat - day and time to be announced!

What is a Twitter chat you ask?  Twitter chats are wonderful discussion forums found on Twitter, moderated and mediated by the use of hashtags (#).  Participants create a Twitter account and log in at a pre-arranged day and time, and post messages on a given topic including the chat hashtag in their message.  Participants are then able to follow the discussion by searching for the hashtag, usually using a tool like Twitchat. On this blog there are links to helpful sites and tools to help you make the most of your #FLNchat.

The Flexible Learning Network arose from questions asked during a course last fall (2010), Facilitating Flexible Learning.  Students and moderators in the course were faculty and staff members of a distributed community college and we were all exploring ways to improve our teaching and learning practice beyond the traditional face-to-face classroom.  As the course progressed we found that we were becoming a community of practice, sharing ideas and supporting one another as we honed our craft.  Would there be a way to continue this sharing and support after the end of the course?  Given our busy schedules we would need a method that was easy to use and not time intensive.  Ideally the method chosen would have room for growth and have a way to share in between discussions.  A bi-weekly 1 hour hashtag chat on Twitter seemed ideal -- we shall see!

Stay tuned.  We will start with invited participants but anyone interested in improving their practice in flexible learning methods is welcome.  Follow @FLNchat on Twitter to stay informed regarding discussion topics and day and time of chats.