Embracing the Twit(ter) in Education

Wondering if Twitter has any real value in education?  If you are reading this blog, you probably use Twitter already, but here is to just in case.  Twitter has educational value depending on how you decide to use it and if you are willing to invest the time to engage in it.  Twitter is a useful learning tool for teachers, for students, and as a medium through which teachers and students can have shared learning spaces that go beyond the physical walls of the classroom.

Things I find Twitter useful for are:
1. Following people who have similar interests that I can share and receive useful information from.  If you feel there is an information overload from the number of tweets, you can create lists to filter what information you want to see.
2. Having conversations following certain hashtags.  You could talk about education 24/7 on Twitter if you followed all the various education hashtags!
3. Complementing the use of other social media such as blogs, Pinterest, wikis, LinkedIN, Google+, and Facebook.

On a broader level, from analysing the tweets of 45 higher education academics who had over 2000 followers on Twitter, Veletsianos (2011, p.1) found seven different ways academics used Twitter.  Academics who used Twitter:

'1. shared information, resources, and media relating to their professional practice;

 2. shared information about their classroom and their students;

 3.  requested assistance from and offered suggestions to others;

 4. engaged in social commentary;

 5. engaged in digital identity and impression management;

 6. sought to network and make connections with others; and

 7. highlighted their participation in online networks other than Twitter'.

In terms of Twitter as a medium through which teachers and students interact (with each other and potentially a wider audience), there are many strategies that can be adopted.  The following two links highlight 50 ways to use Twitter in the Classroom and  50 ways to use Twitter in the College Classroom.

Now can you say that Twitter has no value in education?


Reference:
Veletsianos, G. (2011). Higher education scholars' participation and practices on Twitter. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.