Since When Is Twitter an Educational Tool?

Last June attendees at the Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange (TTIX) conference (http://ttix.org/2010-sessions/tweeting-from-the-titanic-a-hands-on-demo/) participated in a hands-on session using Twitter to teach and recreate history. The end result was “Sinking the Titanic, 100 Years Later” (see http://twhistory.org/). Twhistory is an online effort to use Twitter to teach, recreate, and reenact history. Further, the educators involved “see opportunities for students to learn to think more deeply about history by participating in creating TwHistory reenactments with their classmates. They will learn how historical narratives are made.”

Other reenactments are listed at http://twhistory.org/reenactments/ if you wish to see further examples.

By the way, if you’re still skeptical of using Twitter because of your initial experiences with the tool, check out the Twitter Life Cycle at http://cogdoghouse.wikispaces.com/TwitterCycle and Alan Levine’s blog at http://cogdogblog.com/2007/04/26/splj-20/. It might change your mind.

If you’re still not convinced, you might want to try a collaborative 3D timeline for a classroom project (rather than the Twhistory approach). If so, check out http://www.beedocs.com. If you have an educational need, there’s an online tool.

Web 2.0 Apps such as Twitter, Facebook, ePortfolios and More

This past Wednesday, Tracy Newman and I presented a Technology Brown Bag session on “Twitter, Tumblr, Yammer, Huh? – How to Navigate Massive Information Streams and Have a Life.” A video archive of the session is available from the “Video Archive” link on the Tech Brown Bag schedule page ( http://web.jccc.edu/edtech/brownbag/ ). I was a last minute substitute presenter for Marziah Karch, who presented the same topic at the Summer Institute on Distance Learning and Instructional Technology (SIDLIT) in late July. Marziah’s paper and others from the conference are available in the JCCC Library’s ScholarSpace archive (see http://scholarspace.jccc.edu/sidlit/ ).

Future Sessions
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be focusing on a variety of Web 2.0 tools and considering how they can be used for educational purposes. The Twitter session was the first in the series, followed this coming week (Wednesday, September 16) with “Struttin Your Stuff – Exploring ePortfolios for Everyone (Faculty, Staff and Students) presented by Bob Epp and “Going Where They Are–Using Facebook in Class” presented by Keith Krieger and Jonathan Bacon. Details are available on the Tech Brown Bag schedule page ( http://web.jccc.edu/edtech/brownbag/ ).

Defining Web 2.0
If you’re still unsure what Web 2.0 includes, check out a couple of earlier blog posts at http://technotipster.blogspot.com/2008/08/web-20-and-what-it-really-means.html and http://technotipster.blogspot.com/2008/07/your-digital-toolkit-lesser-known-web.html .

Regarding Twitter
Back to Twitter, a July 2009 survey by Faculty Focus (see http://www.facultyfocus.com/ ) found that almost 80% of faculty are familiar with Twitter compared to 30+% who use Twitter. The report discussed reasons why faculty use Twitter as well as the leading reasons they do not. Page 9 of the report (released in September 2009) summarizes the findings. Faculty survey responses fell in three categories. Faculty use twitter primarily to:

• “Stay current on news/trends”
• “Network with colleagues”
• “Participate in conference backchannel”

If you have an opportunity to review the survey findings, spend some time reading the revealing comments of active tweeters and their current plus planned uses of the tool. You’ll find some potentially useful applications of Twitter.

The report is available online at the http://www.facultyfocus.com/ site.

Twitter for Education?

Launched in July 2006 (see http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/15/is-twttr-interesting/) as a little communications service (originally called Twttr and created by Odeo), Twitter has become the latest fade and fastest growing Web 2.0 tool on the planet. Twitter (www.twitter.com) was described early in its history as “a social network around text messaging” (see above link). Early subscribers (twitterers) would send messages (“tweets”) on such mundane things as “totally could use a vacation now!!!” to “This girl can play some funky songs on her ukulele.”

While those types of tweets are still very common, the tool is also being used to offer customer support (http://twitter.com/trackthis, UPS), sell products (http://twitter.com/GMblogs), inform about current events (http://twitter.com/iranelection) and more.

Of special interest to educators are the suggestions offered by Jim Vanides in his Digital Learning Environments blog back in early June 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/oh9mgk). He suggests using Twitter:

• To create “a backchannel…for student participation (posting questions/comments) during a large group presentation – sort of like giving the audience permission to pass notes, because you can give the note-passing a metacognitive purpose.” Jim has seen this technique used at education conferences and we’ll give this a try at SIDLIT (the Summer Institute on Distance Learning and Instructional Technology scheduled for July 30-31, 2009; see www.sidlit.org).
• For “real-time collaboration” among students, such as when on a field trips.
• To enhance audience participation at athletic events.
• To communicate with a specific audience such as “students’ parents” or alumni or campus clubs (instead of “always creating lengthy newsletters or wading through lots of email”).
• To handle conference planning or to provide “non-attendees” a sense of “being there”. Check out www.twitter.com/sidlit.
  

If you’re interested in learning more about how twitter works, check out Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milsten’s The Twitter Book, from O’Reilly Press, $19.99. It’s a fast read.