Post 3: Who Gives a Tweet?

     Twitter is a platform where users can share their thoughts, news, information and jokes in 140 characters of text or less.  One can create a handle, decide who to follow, tweet a hashtag, respond to (or retweet) the tweets of others, mention someone in a thread, or direct message that person.  When I first heard about this concept, my initial response was “Who gives a tweet?” I mean, do I really care if someone is shopping for groceries, going out to a movie with friends, crushing on so-and-so, or posing random jokes or judgments about others? I can barely respond to e-mail, Facebook, and texting, so would this be just one more piece of technology that I would not have time to keep up with?

        After attending a technology seminar hosted by my school district last year, I realized that Twitter has potential merits in education.  From a professional development consideration, I could follow other educators to find out what they are learning about, implementing, and researching.  I could also receive updates about topics that I am interested in, or chime in to live seminars that I might not be able to attend.  Overall, Twitter may support brief reflections regarding all things learning and teaching.

     From a learning standpoint, Twitter can benefit students and teachers in the classroom.  Students may profit from “enhanced learning through the use of critical reflections, privacy settings, prompt responses, and writing without restraint due to the anonymity of the evaluation."  In fact, the use of Twitter in a middle school science class has been shown to increase student achievement on standardized tests.

     From a teaching point of view, Twitter has formative assessment applications; individual tweets can be collected to gauge student progress and themes from twitter feeds can inform instructional practice .  It can be used during instruction for live discussion feeds, or after instruction to pose inquisitive chirps to personal learning networks.  This little birdie (per se) supports collaborative creative writing purposes, and connects people from other nests around the world with similar interests.  

In addition to supplementing traditional forms of teaching, Twitter can also dispatch important information to parents, students, teachers and administrators in a timely manner, and help to develop a common language around instructional topics or concerns without ruffling too many feathers.

     While the benefits noted above could help teachers and students soar, it could also get them into trouble if those parties involved do not fly in proper formation.  Appropriate digital citizenship must be modeled and exercised by everyone. However, the greater good should travel further, faster, and experience deeper learning opportunities from having formed these types of academic and personal connections via Twitter. There are a number of reasons why stakeholders in education should consider the not only the eggsellent benefits of Twitter in particular, but social media in general, in that: (a) it builds relationships, (b) it's about customers, (c) they're already talking, (d) listen as well as share, (e) you'll be well received, (f) it builds community, and (g) it's here to stay. 

          Even though I am in the chickadee stage of using Twitter myself, feel free to follow me @libbyandme.  For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out this baby blue bird and all its terms, you should.  
In the meantime, perhaps a perfect parakeet might shake your intellectual tail feathers instead :).

References:

Cashmore, P. (2008). Twitterspeak: 66 Twitter terms. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2008/11/15/twitterspeak/

Chen, L. (2012). Trainees’ perceptions on using microblog to support formative evaluation: A Q-methodology study. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 4(3), 235-246.

Kuehn, L. (2012). Getting into trouble on Facebook. Our Schools / Ourselves, 21(2), 83-88.

Lu, A. (2011). Twitter seen evolving into professional-development tool. Education Week, 30(36), 20.

Matteson, A. (2010). Tweacher (n): The Twitter enhance teacher. School Library Monthly, 27(1), 22-23.

McArthur, J. A., & Bostedo-Conway, K. (2012). Exploring the relationship between student-instructor interaction on Twitter and student perceptions of teacher behaviors. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 24(3), 286-292.

Mercer, A. (2011). Learning takes flight with Twitter. Canadian Music Educator / Musicien Eucateur Au Canada, 53(1), 35.

Messner, K. (2009, December). Pleased to tweet you; making a case for Twitter in the classroom. School Library Journal, 44-47.

Perfect Polly Pet (2013, March 28). Official as-seen on TV commercial.  Retrieved on January 5, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELrZRru0UbQ

Siemans, G. (n.d.). Description of connectivism [blog]. Retrieved December 31, 2013, from http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html

Smith, B. (2012). The beginner’s guide to Twitter. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/06/05/twitter-for-beginners/

VanVooren, C, & Bess, C. (2013). Teacher tweets improve achievement for eighth grade science students. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics & Informatics, 11(1), 33-36.

Williamson, R., & Education Partnerships, I. (2012). Social media for school communication: Research into practice. Education Partnerships, Inc.

Wright, N. (2010). Microblogging for reflection: Developing teaching knowledge through Twitter. Proceedings of the International Conference on E-Learning, 419-424.