Just another dent in the damage…

Teachingcommons: Teaching 2.0 Circle & Blogging

Twitter and Microblogging:

The general theme of last week’s teaching commons was the discussion of blogging – what it is and how it can be used. It intended to offer ideas to both those new to blogging about how to start up and get writing and to those wanting to get more out of it, if they’ve been blogging for a while, by introducing widgets and RSS. One area of particular interest for me, after reading Boutin’s article in Wired Magazine, was the discussion surrounding microblogging and how services like Twitter can be used in higher education.

Twitter is one of the more well known examples of microblogging, along with Jaiku, which limit posts to 140 characters. It’s basically a ’status update’ application like that found on Facebook but without all the other stuff. Instead of friends you get ‘followers’ and in turn you’re able to ‘follow’ others and their activities quite easily by searching names or locations. The good thing about Twitter is that once you’re signed up you may never need to visit http://www.twitter.com again. Twitter clients such as Twhirl or Twitterific are downloadable for free and automatically alert you to updates in real time as well as providing a user-friendly interface to search and add feeds to your profile. Updating your own status has also never been easier as there’s an abundance of medium to choose from – SMS messaging, email, desktop clients, IM clients and the web, and there’s an option to receive text messages of updates from those you choose to follow (limited to O2). This makes it fast and super user-friendly when it comes to posting quick updates about what you’re doing, whose keynote your listening to, what amazing new product has just been released or even what you’re having for tea.

I have mini obsessions with it. Some weeks I’ll be posting my life story, in others I can’t quite get why anybody would be interested in what I’m doing, in others I think ‘I’m not sure I’m really making the most of this’, in others I think ‘I wish I actually knew more people using Twitter’ maybe I’d feel like less of a stalker and in others I give up completely. This week however has been a week of ’so how can we make use of Twitter in higher education?’ Well after a little thinking, a little discussion and a little searching I’ve come up with a short list to outline a few suggestions.

Twitter in Higher Education:

• Classroom communities - Students using Twitter as a way to collaborate about class work beyond the classroom may lead to more productive discussions in class.
• Class communication – Teachers/lecturers could be encouraged to use Twitter as a way to communicate with students about homework, room changes, time changes, class preparation, further reading etc.
• Conference news – Conference tags (#tags) can be added in posts to identify updates as conference news. In following a conference you’re able to receive live news from an event and gain ‘insider knowledge’ that only the insiders are getting.
• Q and A sessions – Stuck on your homework? Not sure what the next class is about? Was there any reading to do? What room is it being held in? Who’s the guest speaker? If in doubt ask your class mates, surely one of them will know the answer.
• Feedback - Rather than waiting until the end of the module to fill in a feedback form Twitter can be used as a means to generate immediate feedback about a class or event. It can be used to encourage particular teaching methods and offer advice about how to do things differently.
• Distance learners – Using Twitter to communicate with distance learners has the potential to offer students greater learning support and encouragement throughout their courses.
• Networking – As a social networking application Twitter also provides the perfect space to monitor new developments in your subject area on an international scale.

For more see:

• An interview with David Parry;
• Twitter at Penn State World Campus;
• Can we use Twitter for educational activities?

Twitter in Libraries:

There’s also a lot of talk circulating about the benefits of libraries introducing a Twitter service to communicate with its patrons. Librarians could be using Twitter as a platform to discuss conferences and events and keep up-to-date with developments in the field of information as well as to promote library services or alert library users to service downtimes etc. There are examples of libraries using Twitter as a reference service or to inform its ‘followers’ about new releases, library events and even when reservations come into stock but I’m just not sure how well it has all been received.

For more see:

• The Ultimate Guide for Librarians;
• Casa Grande Public Library;
• Missouri River Regional Library;
• Nebraska Library Commission.

So it’s all a great idea, right? Well yes, I think so but in practice you might encounter a few problems.

Potential Cons:

• Encouraging students to sign up to external services may not be such a good idea as there are terms and conditions which apply to these services that are outside agreements students have already signed to make use of university services;
• Information platform overload – There are already a variety of platforms students are encouraged to use such as virtual learning portals, which already have forum facilities etc and as Facebook is already deeply ingrained in student activities some may be reluctant to convert;
• Service management – Like instant messaging (’Ask the Librarian’ services) if Twitter was introduced as a library service there would need to be someone who can manage that service and provide frequent updates. That could mean more staff and more money and could in fact stop the service dead in its tracks even before it hits the mark.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under blogging, internet, libraries, social networking, twitter, uni, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.