using Twitter in education - what the mlearn audience thought
I recently presented at mLearn08 about the potential use of Twitter in Teaching and Learning based on a survey I did quite a while ago (slides: http://www.slideshare.net/andyramsden/how-do-people-use-twitter-and-why-do-we-need-to-know-presentation )
Part of my session included the audience (about 60 people) to split into groups and write down on a piece of paper (yes I know !) how they thought Twitter might be used to support teaching, learning and administration.
The following is their thoughts in the raw - no editing by me. I'll leave you to use the comments area to add or discuss these uses. From this I'll start to work up some appropriate scenarios.
- using twitter for sharing links to useful info for social / school groups. Build on the speed of the social networking by Twitter - use its advantages of immediacy
- feedback to / from students. Note this is a much more social experience that just texting
- collect feedback on new initiatives, such as what do you think to this learning space? tweet reply to ...
- student tracking
- coordinating arrival a a venue or target a destination during a field trip
- student support - developing networks
- games and inductions
- data collection - use as a simple survey tool
- increase openness and involvement in courses / programmes, for example "just read a fantastic course work ..."
- sport / social club announcements
- students contribution to a learning group on facebook
Firstly, thanks all for their input. I think there are some filter exercises that should be undertaken with these. For instance, the students will need to make the decision to create a twitter account. Therefore, when we are using it to disseminate information will all have done this? If not then they will need an alternative method of getting the info. The same applies with feeding information back. So we need to find a "killer app" for it if it is going to be an instructor (staff) led approach.
I saved your show to my slideshare group. It looks good. Great set of
preliminary thoughts from your session. I have followed on #mlearn08. I
will be putting Twitter near the top of my Top Ten tools when I redo it
soon.
I am looking at similar tools in a more closed environment for
student protection, maybe edmodo, utterli or ... I will follow your work
with interest. Elaine
I recently completed an assignment with my students at American University.
They used Twitter for 14 days. I posted about the experience here:
http://digitalmindsblogger.blogspot.com/. I'd love to hear your reaction
and comments. Thanks.