Twitter Experiment–An unexpected lesson that lasted ALL day

This semester I am having my students Twitter for a grade.  All they have to do is twitter throughout the semester. Midsemester I am having them write a Twitter reflection paper.  I noticed the same people twittering over and over, but there’s 20 to each class. What to do?

Today, I had a meeting that meets every first Tuesday of the month. Since I teach Computer-Mediated Communications, I figured  these meeting days would be a fantastic way to engage students online. Instead of the standard discussion board to go comment on a classmate’s blog, I decided to have them twitter! THE HORROR!

Students have already been hesitant to twitter. They have told me they hated it, despised it, but they never had an educated reason for having these feelings. All the students who HATED Twitter, well, have never USED Twitter. In my opinion, people may look at Twitter at first and be intimidated thinking they are coming into a conversation midway. Not so. Twitter is great for starting where you start. No one has ever had to twitter from the beginning to jump into the conversation!

Today, the assignment was simple: tweet 20 times about the reading as well as respond to your classmates. I had students use the hashtag #ATEC3325 so I too could jump in. (I also made lists on Twitter for both of my classes to make it easy for students to follow each other without a follow committment)

As the day progressed the conversations have gotten more interesting. The students are critically analyzing the article and reflecting on the subject. Of course we have some stray conversations, but otherwise, the students are tweeting and engaging each other through a new participatory media source.

Below is JUST a small snapshot of what students have been posting:

I am really impressed by some of the conversations. I’m  surprised excited that this WORKED as well as it did. I commend my ATEC 3325 class for conquering their Twitter fears!

All day today , I have been responding to questions and to comments. I have had a blast! I think some of my students have too. It’s 9:30pm and students are still twittering and engaging their classmates in discussion. (Class is usually @10:30am and @11:30am) Yes, the discussion has gone beyond the article, but that’s ok. It’s natural.  You get to know your class very well by using Twitter. My teaching philosophy is to engage and interact with students. I’m not a lecturer, but I love having students read and then apply.

It is not surprising that not ALL of the 40 students from my  two sections participated. I’m not sure why, but I will find out Thursday morning after we discuss what happened during our day of tweeting.

I suggest trying this in your class if not only to challenge your students, but to also engage them in a different type of communication tool. What they write on Twitter should matter. I’m trying to show that Twitter is MORE than a play by play of their day. Twitter is about ideas, and thoughts that engage an audience. Yes, sometimes the mundane appears, BUT, that is what makes Twitter so interesting. Twitter is about engaging and using the feed to hopefully be an interesting short read for someone who may find they want to Google for more information. If students moan and groan about using it at first, don’t back down! Make them use Twitter so they have an educated reason why they don’t like it. Keep reminding them after finals they can delete their account, but otherwise, have students tweet for the semester on any subject you teach. This would work well for classes in political science (campaign season is approaching), history, scientific discoveries, sociology experiments, anthropology, etc. The uses are endless!

I just want students to see that Twitter is more about personalizing their information than it is following anyone and everyone. They have the control over the information they put out and they let in.

These two tweets made me smile and excited:

I am proud!