Teaching with Twitter
In an effort to improve classroom discussions, I used Twitter as a collaboration tool in a short story class in the summer of 2009, and have since written an article about my experiences. In the coming weeks, I will share those experiences with you by serializing the article here on The Wheel. Alternatively, you can read the full text.
For those of you who prefer bullet-points to narrative, check out these tips for teaching with Twitter:
- Establish a Twitter account just for your teaching, and encourage students to create a dedicated Twitter account for the class.
- Choose a hash tag that works for your class or subject area.
- Set clear expectations of how you expect your students to use Twitter.
- Reread the class Twitter stream as part of your final preparations for class.
- Validate and reward substantive and helpful Twitter participation.
- Tweet Multiple Media.
- Set up a RSS feed of class tweets on the course web page.
- Use Twitter to share your work as a faculty member with your students.
- Use a time-delay application to front-load your tweeted wisdom.
- Consider using Twitter as a personal response system (aka “clickers”).
- Dr. Andy Jones
Jones, A. “How Twitter Saved my Literature Class: A Case Study with Discussion.” (2011). Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media. A collection edited by Charles Wankel. United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 91-106.