Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades
Twitter actually can be a helpful study tool, some students and educators say
Eric Brunsell, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh:
If students organize (with or without instructor help) academic networks with other students in similar classes and programs, they can develop virtual study groups, share resources, and receive and provide support from others. And as their academic network (or personal learning network) broadens to include their professors and experts in the field, they can begin to see traditional course content from multiple perspectives and in real-world settings.
Jenna Gardner, teacher at Meadowcreek High School, Norcross, Ga.:
[One] possibility is to use Twitter as a type of interactive reading response journal. As students read an assigned text, they record their impressions and questions to allow their fellow classmates to give their input. I do this using Edmodo, a microblogging website designed specifically for schools, but students could do it more informally on their own.
William Kist, professor at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio:
Use it as a study group, if all of your class is following each other. In the days leading up to a big assignment, you could have them tweet x number of times or x number of things they've found online.
And there are Twitter-like options for students in communities without easy access to Web technology:
Jim Burke, teacher at Burlingame High School, Burlingame, Calif.:
Part of what Twitter has offered is the concept of communicating in a short note. But you can also give kids an index card and do Twitter in the classroom on paper. So if you're in an underprivileged school district and you want to do what you can in terms of teaching kids how to communicate in short messages effectively, then you're at least teaching the thinking processes.
But the point is not Twitter, because something else will come along to challenge and replace it. It's the various forms of communication students need to master and the knowledge of which one, when, why, and how to use it effectively. Kids in today's world need to be able to communicate the same idea and content in 3,000, 300, 30, 3, 1, and no words (using an image instead) and to do so on a sheet of paper, a computer screen, or a presentation screen, using words, images, sounds, and infographics as needed.
Reader Comments
Just communication
When aasked to write a 6 word novel, Ernest Hemingway posed this:
"For sale, baby shoes, never worn."
Imagine what some of our budding young writers might do with the additional 112 characters Twitter allows.
The challenge of education has always been to get the students involved and keep them that way. If Twitter or any other social media site helps to accomplish that then I can only say hooray. I have marvelled for years that students will complete reading assignments online while they resist opening books with all the power of their being.
Is Twitter limited? Of course. Limited, but so powerful if used creatively.
@Tony Speranza and @Bryan
Tony: I see Twitter (and the other technologies discussed) as supplementing the classroom experience, not supplanting it. A quick review of student tweets can help an educator assess, prior to class, whether a) students are current in their reading assignments and b) if there are any obvious misconceptions about the passages. This knowledge could then help focus the classroom discussion on a more in-depth exploration of the text.
Brian: I agree with the criticism of using the "internet predator" strawman as a reason to reject these technologies. Aren't they just as likely to be approached by a "physical predator" on their walks home from the school or the bus stop?
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