Using Twitter to Teach, Part One – My Twitter Evolution

29 Sep Using Twitter to Teach, Part One – My Twitter Evolution

An emerging trend in higher education is the use of social media for student communication and teaching. I call it “emerging” because according to a recent study conducted by Pearson, only 31% of faculty use social networking to communicate with students although over 80% of them have at least one social networking account. What I find particularly interesting is of the 31% actually using social networking to communicate with students, only about 3% are using Twitter as the tool of choice.

With any new technology you use to teach, you must first become familiar with how it works. The more comfortable you are with Twitter, the more likely you are to use it effectively with students.  When I first signed up over three years ago, my Twitter account remained relatively unchanged for a year because I didn’t find any added value by using it. It took figuring out how to search and use the tools effectively before it became such an integral part of my life.

As I became more acclimated to Twitter, I observed that my “Twitter life” evolved over time. My progression can be classified in three steps:

Social Use – This is the reason I signed up to begin with.  I started following a few friends and would update my status via the Twitter website. Occasionally, I would also follow someone famous. I didn’t use Twitter too much during this time because Facebook was a better way to communicate with friends and family. I had trouble understanding some tweets because I wasn’t familiar with the Twitter language.

News/Information – Two years ago, I began following news information outlet tweets such as ABC, NBC, CNN, BreakingNews and local and national political leaders. I also started to learn how to retweet and direct message.  Using the basic Twitter search functions, I found Tweets on topics I found interesting. At that point, I used Twitter on a weekly basis.

Industry/Professional – a year ago, the “game-changer” for me was when a colleague suggested I download a social networking application such as TweetDeck or Seesmic. The software made it easier for me to get Tweets on my desktop much like email alerts. I also began using searches more frequently and effectively. I learned about hashtags and started using them.  I began following industry leaders in education and business often sharing ideas and information with peers during professional conferences.

Today, I use Twitter on a daily basis. From my own experience, it took me a while to get comfortable with Twitter. I’m curious if that is why most faculty members are reluctant to use it. Do you use Twitter? If so, how are you using it?  In a future post, I will explore how higher education faculty are currently using Twitter to teach and provide you with some general resources and guidelines to get started. In addition, the CETL is considering offering a workshop on using Twitter to teach. Please let us know if you are interested.

Arturo