As I was searching around the internet I came across a Yahoo article on Twitter use in college classrooms. The article is about a study done at Michigan State University on professors having students use Twitter for class. They found that in courses that use Twitter to engage students, the students receive higher grades. Christine Greenhow, one of the professors doing the study at Michigan State, says that her students interacted with each other more on Twitter then in the classroom. They were able to ask questions and get help easily. The students also learned how to summarize their ideas and keep up on the latest research.
I found that this article mirrors our experience with Twitter in our class. We used Twitter for the same reasons the students at Michigan State did. We posted stuff relevant to class, we asked questions, and tried to stay up to date on the most recent research on social networking.
For me, Twitter was a mostly positive experience. It was an easy way to connect with classmates outside of school and have conversations. It was interesting to see all the articles posted and all thoughts people had on issues that we were discussing in class. I feel like it really added to the experience of the class, especially since our theme was social media. The most challenging part was limiting my posts to 140 characters. While I probably won’t ever use Twitter for non-class related work, I wouldn’t mind using again for a class.
My question is then, do you think this news article is accurate based off of the experiences you had in class? Did it help you to improve you grades, or did it make class harder for you? Was Twitter a good experience, and would you use it again after this?
i agree with the article; I feel that using Twitter in this class was really helpful. I used it for asking questions about the class as well as venting my frustrations or accomplishments. I definitely feel like it made our class as a whole more open with one another: we really were connected by it. It sparked more conversation when we were together in person. Even as a Twitter user prior to class, I agree with you in the fact that it was hard to limit my posts to 140 characters, but because the posts could be about anything “Eng 112” related, it was a relatively easy addition to the class and it wasn’t very hard for me to earn an “A” with my weekly tweets. I think that the fact that I felt more connected to the class via Twitter is possibly part of what Dr. Faris wants us to get out of the class: social media can connect us. Coming from a high school that considered all technology a “distraction” (which for many it probably was, I wonder if this type of thing would work in a high school English class though?) I think using Twitter was a great opportunity that had a lot of benefits for our class as a whole.
Twitter was most definitely a good experiece for me and, I believe, the rest of our class. It seems, according to one of the links from the above Twitter article, that as far as social media in classrooms goes, Twitter is rarely used. So, way to go Dr. Faris!
I don’t necessarily think it contributed to higher grades for me, but I do believe that it was useful in heightening my interest in the class theme and in asking quick questions/extending in-class discussions. At the start of the semester, I had little desire to study digital privacy. However, my mindset quickly changed! I think that Twitter definitely helped with that. It really, for lack of better phrase, added to the modern “feel” of the class, which really kept me interested. I ended up enjoying our class theme enough so that I read more than I had to for class (and I ain’t no speedy reader).
Lauren, I agree with you that Twitter really helped connect our class. It extended the conversation, and actually, made it an ongoing one. Twitter helped keep us engage with the class and eachother. I also wonder whether it would work in high school classrooms…I suppose it just depends on the kids.
For me at least, I’ve used Twitter in several classes – a couple at University of Missouri and now in English 112 here at UWEC. I’m really happy with the way it works in terms of connecting me to my classmates and my teacher. I’ve had several questions that have been answered over Twitter, and I feel like I’ve been able to build relationships with everyone outside the classroom. I think because of the conversations I’ve had on Twitter, I’ve been able to be more comfortable with my classmates because we literally have access to each other all the time, and talk outside the classroom. This wasn’t necessarily the case for my classes at Mizzou – they were mostly large lecture classes and I often interacted with other students that I never interacted with (or even saw) in my classes. I think the effectiveness in connecting students really depends on the type of environment it is used in. I don’t know about it helping raise grades by any means, but I do love it as a means of conversation.
I feel Twitter has been very beneficial for our class.
I appreciated that it gave us an outlet to ark questions. Sometimes, when you are in a large classroom full of people you do not know it is impossible to ask for help or ideas because you don’t have phone numbers or are not Facebook friends. However, with having a specific hashtag for our class, I feel we were able to in contact with each other outside of class.
Our class definitely opened up and because more comfortable with each other after the first month or so of classes. I wonder if this was a positive consequence of Twitter. We now could maintain more face-to-face discussions because we had a better understanding of what each other was interested based on their Twitter posts.
I really agree with the article you posted. I think Greenhow is correct to say that it improved interactions between her students. However, I don’t know if I think Twitter improved our grades. I feel like it was more of an outlet and a way to socialize. Either way, Twitter was definitely a success.
This article is indeed thought provoking, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was less ‘engaged’ in class activities while on twitter, and more superficial postings of things to earn points, I didn’t feel like the medium I was using helped me communicate, as it put a damper on my speaking ability, I also felt like the use of twitter encouraged us to think about the class outside of class though, and it was usefull if you ever had a class question outside of class. But with this twitter medium, it really needs to be all or nothing, if a student puts in a lot of effort into twitter they will get something out of it, which may be eaiser for a student with a smartphone than engaging in a conversation in class for a prolonged period of time. On the other hand, if you don’t put a lot of effort into it, tweeting for a class becomes a chore, that needs to be put on your daily planner, much like meetings, classes, homework and plans for the day. This makes twitter much less effective as a class tool. I feel like for me it was a chore, but for some of you it must have been a great way to get your voice out into the class, even if you weren’t there. All in all I feel like twitter is a great tool, but not for an academic setting, twitter can be used in conjunction with schools, maybe if we had the option to use twitter with our professors in classrooms those who wanted to use them would do so, and the overall result would be better, but I don’t see the draw for someone like me.
-1356 characters. Tweet?
Well stated, Phil. Tweeting as an assignment was a big chore for me. When trying to think of something to tweet about, I couldn’t really come up with anything important or relevant to our class, nor did I feel doing so was necessary for me to understand technology or digital privacy. So, I would simply find some boring thing to say and end with #eng112 to reach the requirements. When I really couldn’t find anything necessary to say, I wouldn’t tweet. After all, who cares if I’m “working on my paper #eng112” or whatnot? Yet, for not saying something like this, I would receive a bad grade just for not reaching a certain number of tweets. Trying to reach the minimum requirement of tweets also didn’t allow me to engage in meaningful conversation, as nothing that was tweeted seemed very important. However, I did like to see what people were tweeting during the presidential debates, as that topic is very interesting to me. Overall, using Twitter was just another form of busy work.
When we first started tweeting in class I was completely opposed to the idea. I figured it would just be another thing to remember to complete. Now, I will admit that it was not that bad. It was interesting to see how people interacted when they were not in a classroom setting. This experience helped me get to know others in the class a little bit better. Also, it was a great way to get feedback and an understanding of other’s ideas for class. One aspect that I didn’t care for was the live tweeting. I feel like people should be focused and completely present in an experience. While watching the debate and movie I felt completely disconnected from what was happening. I found it very difficult to jump between the online discussion and what was actually happening in front of me. I would not be opposed to using Twitter again for a class, but I will not likely continue using it on my own. Also, I think it might be stretching it to say that using Twitter could potentially help my grade. It was helpful, but it isn’t as if it did the work for me.
I have no idea if using Twitter actually boosts grades, but I’d definitely say that it forced us to be more engaged in the class. By requiring a certain number of tweets each week, we had to look for articles that could be related to the class topic or respond to others’ tweets about similar material. I think that this was particularly effective because it made us think critically about what we were reading and forced us to respond to this in an effective manner.
As for helping to foster discussions between members of our class, I’m not sure that Twitter was able to do this as effectively as a face to face conversation. Although we were able to communicate with others about our opinions on articles and posts, the 140 character definitely limited this. I know there were several times that I wanted to write a long response to someone in order to explain my opinion, but it wasn’t really able to do that. I could have written several tweets, but when I did this, I found that usually the other person only referred to tweet that they directly responded to. As a result, more times than not, I either decided not to respond or didn’t state my complete opinion. Thus, I feel like a large part of the conversation was missing because the discussion was conducted on Twitter.
A few people mentioned how Twitter became a chore. Do you think there are ways to make it less of a chore? Like, not having an assigned amount of tweets and just making sure that you tweet regularly?