Posted on February 1, 2008
Twitter Shows Promise for Educational Use
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
A professor at the University of Texas recently posted about the ways in which he used Twitter as part of his curriculum, and the positive impact he felt it had on the class. Although he did not understand fully understand the purpose or usefulness of Twitter when it first came out, Professor Parry states that using the application was "one of the better things [he] did with that class."
He noticed that Twitter allowed conversations to continue outside of class, and not only led to topics directly associated to the "real world" but also allowed classmates to form a sort of community. More than just seeing these classmates twice a week, Twitter allowed the students to get a better sense of who their peers were.
The ability to track a keyword or topic and allow for instant feedback is another plus that Professor Parry discovered when using Twitter for the class. If there was a topic of interest, the student could easily follow it, and if they had problems with an assignment, they could send out a tweet and have their fellow classmates respond with suggestions.
Twitter also serves as a public record of the thoughts that were sent out during the semester, which can be helpful to sort through later. The Professor also noted that Twitter was surprisingly good at aiding in the teaching of grammar. One might think that because of the character limit that grammar would be horrible, but he discovered that the limitations forced students to be concise and to use proper punctuation, in order to avoid having the thought come across unreadable.
I find it interesting that not only has a professor implemented this still somewhat new social media tool in their curriculum, but that he found it to be an unequivocal success. Finding new and unexpected uses for a media tool is exciting--especially when it helps to facilitate and enhance communication in ways that were previously not possible.
I think that Twitter can, indeed, be very useful if you follow the right crowd and use it responsibly.