I published my digital essay on Storify on Sunday afternoon and publicised the fact on Twitter and through the subject forums. By Monday night Storify showed that it had had around 50 views. Like me, I imagined most of the other INF530 students were eagerly reading the work of their fellow students as it became available.
On Tuesday morning I found this tweet notification
Content #Curation per l’educazione e l’apprendimento – by @hbailie – well researched paper – good info per chi ne… http://t.co/CBULOx6l8I
— Robin Good Italia (@RobinGood_IT) June 2, 2014
Wow, Robin Good is like the content curation guru! Somehow he’d come across my essay and posted it onto his Scoop.it page along with a critique. He gave it 7/10 which I’ll take! I flicked to the essay and found it had been viewed more than 500 times.
More tweets followed:
A digital essay completed by Heather Bailie as part of the assessment requirements of #INF530 Concepts & Practic… http://t.co/oU64Q5kO9p
— guzmanadrian (@guzmanadrian) June 2, 2014
Curation as a tool for teaching and learning, @hbailie https://t.co/Rg2Ad2tj4V #NET #TIC #EDU #tech #contentcuration #inf530
— Xarxa IP (@XarxaIP) June 3, 2014
Curation as a tool for teaching and learning, @hbailie https://t.co/d2jTJlceME #NET #TIC #EDU #tech #contentcuration #inf530
— Andreu Villanueva (@AndreuVM) June 3, 2014
Bec was prompted to send this tweet:
Your #digiessay has gone viral! @hbailie lol Keeps popping up in my stream. #winning #inf530
— Bec Spink (@MissB6_2) June 3, 2014
By this stage the number of views of my essay was approaching 2000. But still the tweets came:
Interesente: Curation as a tool for teaching and learning http://t.co/mrSx8FaMtf via @hbailie
— Damià Garcia (@DAMIAGARCIAPRIU) June 3, 2014
Curation as a Tool for Teaching and Learning @hbailie http://t.co/FHmAOzajv0 scooped by @RobinGood
— INFOhio (@infohio) June 3, 2014
Right now there have been 3455 views in about three days. That’s nearly as many views as my personal blog has had in three and a half years.
I sure hope it is favourably assessed when the time comes. I’d hate to think all those people were reading academically inferior work.
Viral. Who’d a thunk it!
UPDATE February 14, 2018
As of today there have been a staggering 78,817 views of my essay. I do so love our connected learning world! However, Storify is closing down so the digital essay has been moved to Wakelet.