Saturday, June 11, 2011

Twitter in the Classroom: No, Really!

"Twitter's for old people."
"I hate Twitter."
"I don't think I need it."
"Twitter's a waste of time."

Twitter is one of the least popular social media among undergraduate students. Researchers know it; instructors know it; and students have no problem sharing their negative opinions about it.

Despite students' apparent disdain for Twitter, the medium has important implications as a professional-development tool. To familiarize graduate assistants and faculty with Twitter's classroom capabilities, a Twitter discussion of social media’s impact on agriculture was included as part of a group project in a graduate seminar at Texas A&M University in Fall 2010. The chat was modeled after AgChat (#agchat), a moderated conversation among agricultural producers, ag professionals, and consumers that takes place every Tuesday from 8-10 p.m. ET. 


Students and department faculty were informed one week before the class session that Twitter would be implemented in the class discussion and were encouraged to open an account and familiarize themselves with the application. Discussion leaders set up a TweetChat room with a class hashtag (#681chat) prior to the start of the discussion and invited Twitter users outside the class to contribute. In the classroom, participants logged into TweetChat, entered the tag, and were able to join in the conversation, which was shown on a SmartBoard for class members who did not or were not able to participate online. 

The moderators posed a series of questions to the group and received responses from class attendees, students and faculty who were absent, and an out-of-state communications professional.One A&M professor - known for his outspoken dislike for social media - encountered snappy remarks from one student, and their TweetChat banter provided a humorous counterpoint for the lively face-to-face discussion.

Overall, we considered the chat a success in familiarizing some students and faculty, who were previously unaware of Twitter's educational or informational capabilities, with the medium. Technical difficulties - an inability to connect to a wireless network and platform crashes - hindered the participation somewhat, but the experience provided participants with a real-world picture of Twitter interaction.



At the conclusion of out #newmediaclass presentation, we'll be using the hashtag to facilitate discussion on Twitter. You can log into TweetChat, search for #newmediaclass, and follow the conversation in real time! 

No comments:

Post a Comment