How to Use Twitter in the Classroom

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed under Tools

Ever wondered how you might actually use twitter with your students to serve pedagogy? Check out these tips from academhack.

Check out these videos from Sage Lewis, too.

Ways to use Twitter in Academia:

Some of these ideas are general, and some are specifically from a Twittering assignment I did for a class last semester. When I first added it to the syllabus I had no idea what to expect. It was just sort of an experiment that I had planned for the end of the semester (all of the students signed up for twitter and followed each other). After using it I have to say it was one of the better things I did with that class, for reasons I will explain below.

Class Chatter: The first thing I noticed when the class started using Twitter was how conversations continued inside and outside of class. Most of these conversations were not directly related to class material, but many were tangentially related. Because the students had the shared classroom experience when something came up outside of class that reminded them of material from class time it often got twittered. This served as a reinforcement/connection between the material and the “real world.”
Classroom Community: Once students started twittering I think they developed a sense of each other as people beyond the classroom space, rather than just students they saw twice a week for an hour and a half. This carried with it a range of benefits, from more productive classroom conversations (people were more willing to talk, and more respectful of others), and also helped me to understand what type of students they were. I learned a great deal about students lives, where they work, that one of them had Thanksgiving dinner with 50+ people. Now this type of supplementary material might not be attractive to all educators, I can definitely say that changed the classroom dynamics for the better. I think this is connected to what Clive Thompson calls the sixth sense of Twitter. Having the Sixth Sense can really help the classroom.
Get a Sense of the World: You can have students look at the Public Timeline of Twitter. This is the place where all public messages get posted. The “noise” ratio here is pretty high, but one gets a sense of how varied are the things people are doing around the globe. Just a quick look at the timeline shows a range of languages, although English is still the predominate one. Additionally the public timeline serves as a sort of quick measure of what people are paying attention to. During large sporting events (World Series, or NFL Playoffs, Twitter) has a large number of messages from people watching these events. New Years was particularly interesting as people around the world wished “Happy New Year” via Twitter, far before the New Year actually got to me in Dallas, TX.

Read all twitter tips at academhack…

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One Response to “How to Use Twitter in the Classroom”

Faces of Web 2.0 ★ 21st Century Teachers » Sage Lewis and 17 uses for twitter on January 31st, 2008 2:15 pm

[…] Sage is very entertaining as he introduces us to twitter. The second video showcases 17 ways to use twitter. Also check out this post on how to use twitter in the classroom. […]