Two weeks ago I was part of a one-day mini-conference on using Twitter in higher education which I mentioned in an earlier post. My talk was on using Twitter in teaching. All of the slides are posted on the NERCOMP page. Mine are posted there too, but I pasted them in below.

First, it must be stated that this SIG (special interest group) was crowd-sourced on Twitter. I saw a tweet by a colleague that sought participants for a Twitter SIG and I, then, passed it along as a retweet. I put my name on a Google Doc the organizers were collating and I stuck with the process. The organizers (Carrie Saarinen (@clsaarinen) of Brown, and Adam Lipkin (@yendi) and Sarah Walkowiak (@swkowk), both at Brandeis) made it all happen by holding regular meetings in Google Hangout and started and collected a series of Google Docs to make the process authentically collaborative. The process was a model of effectiveness and everyone rose to the occasion. In fact, of the nine presenters, I knew only one (former colleague Cristian Opazo (@elguary)). There’s a paper in there somewhere!

One of the suggestions from one of the many presenters was to have a second screen to show how the Twitter backchannel operates. Here is the captured backchannel (using the hashtag #TwSIG) from the conference.

As I said, my talk was about teaching with Twitter, which, I dare say, I’ve never done. But that doesn’t stop an intrepid Academic Technologist! The slides above have very little text so I will try to give you a narrative of what I talked about and the information I gave.

To open I talked about the reasons for wanting to investigate the use of Twitter in teaching. From teaching for the Innovation Age, increasing student engagement, to increasing the number of student voices and giving alternative avenues for engagement, to help “reduce” the size of a large classroom, to keeping the conversations going outside of class time, to encouraging engagement and connections with others around the globe, to acknowledging the fact that current faculty may not know how to get this social media conversation started because they are ill-prepared for it, there is a lot to be said about Twitter in teaching and learning.

I got loads of information for this talk from Twitter users, the people I follow or who follow me back. I put out two tweets in December and got a tremendous amount of feedback on examples of uses of Twitter in teaching.

Here they are:

Check out dana boyd’s (@zephoria) comprehensive list of Twitter references (not just her work).

The white paper “Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities” by the London School of Economics and Political Science is very useful.

Reynol Junco (@reyjunco) is a faculty member at Lock Haven University and his written and spoken extensively on using social media in classes. Not only that, he tests the effectiveness of these tools. He has a 2010 co-written paper (with Greg Heiberger and E. Loken) that should not be missed -“The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades.” (PDF) One awesome thing that arose from talking about Junco while folks in the audience live-tweeted was that he took note and responded to what was being said. In fact, when asked (by me), he said that he has another paper from 2012 to recommend: “Putting twitter to the test: Assessing outcomes for student collaboration, engagement and success” (PDF) co-written with C. Michael Elavsky and Greg Heiberger. The bottom line … Twitter increases student engagement and student engagement increases student grades in the course!

Also check out Junco’s video (below). I didn’t show it in the presentation but it is worth viewing.

Some other good examples of Twitter in teaching:

Professor Javier Corrales at Amherst College is using Twitter to increase student engagement in a political science class. This was sent to me by Andy Anderson (@GeoObservatory) who also checked in while the SIG was on-going.

Derek Bruff’s (@derekbruff) blog is an invaluable resource for Twitter-related topics like this one: Structured Twitter Assignments. He’s also well-known for using clickers in teaching. And he checked in to our #TwSIG conference!

University of Connecticut professor Margaret Rubega (@ProfRubega) uses Twitter in her Ornithology class to get students tweeting bird sightings. The post was written in 2010 and she’s still using Twitter in the recent class.

“Teaching to the Text Message” by Andy Selsberg is a 2011 New York Times Op-ed piece on how short descriptions, written well, are quite possibly more valuable than ever. Learn to be concise! Tighten up your language! Write the most superb YouTube comment!

I gave a few examples from “60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter in the Classroom” One was Howard Rhiengold’s (@hrheingold ) use of Twitter to hold “office hours” another was giving pop quizzes through a pre-class tweet or yet another: daily word games on Twitter. Check out the list for more ideas.

To make sure to provide some caveats for Twitter use, I said that one should be very familiar and comfortable with Twitter before jumping in to using it in teaching. Twitter in not Facebook and the do’s and don’ts are not as apparent on first blush. Actually, I think Twitter adoption has been slow on the social media front (it only has, like, 13% of the share) because using it is uncomfortable at first, like ballet point shoes. The examples I gave were from people who regularly use Twitter, some might call them power-users, and they chose not to use Twitter in teaching for reasons such as: concern for student privacy, not seeing the need, worry about inappropriate (and, hence, distracting) comments on Twitter, and low participation on the part of students.

One can imagine that a lot more work goes into a course if a faculty member (especially a lone prof without grad students) has to keep up with course twittering along with everything else. If you're interested in using Twitter in teaching, learn how to use it before jumping into the teaching arena. It could increase student involvement in the materials, open minds, increase participation and may even make students smarter (at least on the topic you’re teaching). Lastly, don’t assume students know how to use Twitter. They don’t! Like all of us, we’re learning these things as they come at us, and we all need to be shown the ropes. The end.

Again, check out the other slide presentations and the tweets from the day. There's some good nuggest to be found!

I didn’t even get into how I really use Twitter. It is my news feed. My network. My personal professional development tool. I’ve met colleagues on Twitter that I would have never met. I’ve given co-delivered talks that grew out of these virtual meetings (like the one described here!), I’ve heard of conferences to attend, attended conferences without ever leaving my chair or spending a bit of money on conference fees or using fossil fuel, I heard of the Hacking the Academy project on Twitter and submitted a manuscript, and I heard about a newish Fulbright program (Alumni Ambassadors) that I am now involved with -- all of these were on Twitter!

Twitter questions? - Hit me up! @meg_stewart

Ballet feet photo modified from CC-licensed photo by Heather-Wilson.

There's a new version of Spreadsheet Mapper out. I used version 2 in the past and thought it was terrific. I was under the impression that Google Fusion Tables would replace Spreadsheet Mapper but I guess I was mistaken.

If you're in the neighborhood of Norwood, MA, on May 9, consider this one-day meeting on the use of Twitter for higher educators. The event is called Tweet This SIG!, and will feature discussions by technologists, faculty members and librarians talking about the use of this social networking tool in a variety of contexts. I'll be there!

Check it out:

Can Twitter really be useful in academia? Tweet This SIG! will cover everything from Twitter basics to advanced uses in higher education. Participants will walk away with a deeper understanding of this powerful real-time communication tool along with a Twitter toolkit to help get them started on a new and exciting Twitter adventure.

Whether you are a skeptic, a new user or an advanced user, Tweet This SIG! will introduce you to a variety of ideas and best practices for using Twitter in teaching, learning and research.