I have been using Twitter regularly with my students, but there are a few problems. One, not everybody has a Twitter account; two, they use Facebook more than any other social network; and three, some students believe that adding Twitter to their social network activities is just too much.
But most of my students are between 18 and 24. From the current semester, only a few follow me. I wrote my Twitter username on the syllabus and explained that, since I live in Williamsburg and need to drive everyday, I may be need to inform them that I will be late. Or that I'm canceling the class due to traffic. However, most students act indifferent to this medium. On "If You Twitter, Will They Come?" Charles Hodges mentions that Facebook may be a better route to keep in touch with students. I agree with him, because this is the same situation I am experiencing with my students. But I don't want to befriend my students, or at least not all of them. Hodges also mentions that Twitter users are middle-aged, or at least older than college students. This demographic fact can be an advantage for adult education. It may be that Twitter is also much easier to use than Facebook.
In "Horton Hears a Tweet," Dunlap and Lowenthal mention that,
“We wanted a tool that would enable us to establish an ongoing sense of being present at the current moment and able to receive and respond to students immediately, forming a real-time online dialogue and forum for sharing.”
I don't believe that the dialogue is in “real-time,” because not all the users are connected to Twitter in the same way. Some users access their account using a computer, and never read the Twitter timeline from a phone. It may be easier and faster to communicate via Twitter than Blackboard, but it is not a 100% real-time conversation. Now, if we ask students in a large class or a conference—who have access to a computer or a cell phone—to tweet their opinion on something, then we will have a real-time group conversation.
When students are at home and have a problem with their homework, or find resources that might be of interest to the class, they can send a message to their peers or their professor. They can use Blackboard or any other LMS, Facebook, or Twitter. Personally, I prefer Twitter, because it's easier to access Twitter than Blackboard, and because Facebook means a lot of distraction. Also, on Facebook I need to accept someone's friendship, and “unfriending” may be embarrassing, or uncomfortable to say the least. While on Twitter, the worst situation is to “block” a follower, which doesn't have as much baggage as “unfriending.”
The video presentation, "Point/Counterpoint: Disrespectful and Time Wasting"
This presentation resembles a Twitter conversation. It's possible to express a thought in 140 characters or less, but in order to say something more meaningful we have to write several tweets, and read other people's tweets in between. What I learned from here was not that much about Twitter and using it in class, but rather how to present something popular and make it interesting.
== After thought ===
I used to tweet only about school, some links on funny stuff, or just photos of something crazy I saw on the street. But then, I realized that not too many people see the photos on third party services, like yfrog. When I stated to tweet my photos from Flickr and with a different URL (short, mysterious URLs), people clicked on the link and saw the photos. In general, people (the general public, not only my followers) are more likely to click on a general link two or three times more than on a photo link in yfrog or a similar service.
This information is not scientific, but I have learned it by experience:
1. People will read any tweets and click on the link if the word "CAT" is included.
2. The title of a photo is more important than the topic and/or quality of the photo.
3. I tweet the photos from Flickr, with the "blog it" feature. By the time I finish tweeting and click back to see the photo, up to 5 people may have already seen the photo.
4. The best time to tweet a link to a photo is from 10 PM to 1 AM.
5. The worst time is between 11 AM and 2 PM.
6. People will only see one photo if the link goes to the page photo, the one with the GPS, tags, and other information. This is an example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notascari/5068931619/
7. People will see the photo and the photostream, if the link is for a slide show. This is the same photo in a slide show format: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notascari/5068931619/#/photos/notascari/5068931619/lightbox/
Your point about twitter not being a "real-time" conversation among users is an interesting one...especially if we are thinking about a class context. I agree that people will use twitter in different ways, but there is certainly the possibility to use it for synchronous and asynchronous communication. One important question for me is whether the use of twitter in an online / hybrid course can be used to enhance social presence of both the instructor and the students?
ReplyDeleteYour post, as always, is informative and interesting. I totally agree with the comment about Twitter being a good way to reach all students. I think a broadcast text, personally, is more effective in this arena. I have two daughters - ages 25 and 21 - neither are users of Twitter, but they do use Facebook and always text. Personal email isn't used very often, but work email is. On the other hand, my son-in-law is an avid Tweeter. While they grew up as the digital generation, they - like all - have choices with technology. Choice is what makes it difficult to 'standardize' for educational purposes.
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