Faculty are increasingly experimenting with social media, and it’s exciting to find more and more courses incorporating Twitter, a ProfHacker favorite. Just last week on ProfHacker Ryan provided an excellent introduction to Twitter, while earlier in the summer Brian reflected on his use of Twitter in the classroom during Spring 2010. As we gear up for the Fall 2010 semester, I wanted to revisit the idea of teaching with Twitter.
I’ll address my own pedagogical use of Twitter in a future ProfHacker post, but for today I want to share a general framework for Twitter adoption in the classroom, originally sketched out in late August 2009 by Rick Reo. Rick is an instructional designer at George Mason University, and he’d been keeping tabs on the different ways instructors were using Twitter in their teaching. Rick sent a draft of this adoption matrix to the university’s Teaching with Technology listserv, and I soon began trying to situate my own Twitter use on the chart.
In the process, I adapted Rick’s original matrix, re-imagining the vertical axis as a spectrum of conversation, ranging from monologic to dialogic, and redefining the horizontal axis as a measurement of student activity, ranging from passive to active. After some other changes based on my experience with Twitter, I ended up with this revised Twitter Adoption Matrix (larger image):
Even a cursory glance at the matrix reveals the myriad ways Twitter might be an effective tool in and outside of your classroom. It can be an effective one-way communication tool for sharing news or broadcasting links over the weekend. Or it can be used in class itself as a two-way backchannel. Or try Twitter as a platform for reflective thinking, asking students at the end of class to sum up the most valuable lesson of the day. In my experience, having only 140 characters to do so will actually make it much more likely the students give a concise and focused reflection, rather than some canned response they think you want to hear.
One point I’d like to emphasize with this matrix is that there is no single right way to teach with Twitter. And there’s no wrong way either. You don’t even have to use Twitter with the same rhythm or intent over the span of the semester; you can range across the passive-active and monologic-dialogic axes as it makes sense for your and your students’ needs.
How about you? If you teach with Twitter, where do you and your students fall on the Twitter Adoption Matrix? If you’re thinking about trying Twitter with your students this fall, what aspects of this framework sound most promising? And what’s missing here? Are there ways you’d change this framework based on your own experience?
Let us know in the comments, or even reply to us on Twitter itself!
[Twitter Adoption Matrix conceived by Rick Reo and revised by Mark Sample]
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9 Responses to A Framework for Teaching with Twitter
derekbruff - August 16, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I’m wondering, do you have the “In-Class Backchannel” and “In-Class Directed Discussion” activities swapped on your grid? Although the term “backchannel” can be used in multiple ways (feedback from students to teacher, peer-to-peer discussions among students), I tend to think of it as more active on the students’ part than a directed discussion in which the teacher is taking the lead.
phdeviate - August 16, 2010 at 1:36 pm
It’s a commonplace that when teaching writing, the more writing you can get students to do (structured, unstructured, whatever) the more benefit they’re going to get from the course. What I wonder is how writing on twitter can support that goal. On the one hand, I have learned a lot about the power of brevity, and how to revise wordy language on twitter, but on the other hand, I would never want to give students the impression that good writing can’t come in chunks of over 140 characters. Ask Faulkner: it totally can. I wonder if banning twitteresque abbreviations for class twitter discussions would make students think more about the mechanics of writing and be more thoughtful about their words, or whether it would discourage participation. Of course, I’ve used in-class freewrites for years in which I promise that spelling, grammar, etc. don’t count. I’m just noodling here, but would love thoughts about twitter-teaching writing!
gavatron - August 16, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Interesting. The matrix is some nice synthesis. I reflected on my own use of Twitter in the classroom on my blog and found that Twitter worked as:* a vehicle for immediate feedback, from student to instructor and instructor to students* a chance for (mild) student subversiveness* a mobile solution that allowed students to: o get last-minute (even geo-tagged) updates about the course o continue the learning process outside the classroom and still get feedback from me* and, a way for students uncomfortable with speaking in a class of 100, to have voiceThe most exciting (from a pedagogical perspective) was students being able to engage in learning outside the classroom and get feedback from me. Twitter is at its most powerful, IMHO, when its coupled with mobile devices.More here: http://www.gavan.ca/academia/teaching/reflections-on-my-first-use-of-twitter-in-the-classroom/
nackroyd - August 16, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I was interested in the links to previous Twitter discussions, but they both go to a George Mason site, for which you need a George Mason ID number. Not helpful.
george_h_williams - August 16, 2010 at 2:34 pm
@nackroyd: Sorry about that. Those links are fixed now.To all our readers: ProfHacker content should never appear behind the Chronicle paywall. If a link to ProfHacker content ever sends you to a page that asks you to log in, you should be able to figure out how to access the information freely by looking closely at the URL.
billwolff2 - August 16, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Great post, Mark, and thanks for linking to my post on teaching with Twitter in the graduate classroom.At Computers and Writing 2010 Rachael Sullivan, Julie Meloni, Karl Stolley, and I ran two workshops on using Twitter for teaching and research. The web site we created for the workshops also contains Out of the World Resources for teaching with Twitter. I’ll be adding your post to that page, as well.
samplereality - August 16, 2010 at 3:31 pm
@derekbruff: Good question regarding the difference between a backchannel and a directed discussion. I think an argument could be made either way (and in fact, this ambiguity supports my point that there’s no right way to use Twitter, including when it comes to making a chart about Twitter!). I guess what I meant by placing the backchannel on the the more passive side of student engagement is that the backchannel won’t necessarily be “on task.” It could quickly evolve (devolve?) into off-topic chatter. So while the students are actively engaged, they may not be engaged in the topic at hand. A directed discussion on Twitter, though, might get more students involved, and involved in what the class is actually discussing.@gavatron: Thanks for the link to your own experiences with Twitter. I really like how you were open to (and valued) the emergent student experiences with Twitter just as much as what you had actually planned. The whole mobile side of Twitter is something I’m just now beginning to think about, and I think you make a strong case for having Twitter “field trips” that extend the class beyond the four walls of the classroom, no matter what the subject is.@nackroyd — I apologize for the bad links. That comes from a problem I have with my Zotero-run proxy server, which automatically asks for a password at the Chronicle site, even for the free content!@george_h_willians: Thanks for being on top of the link situation! I’m still learning here!
bergtrom - August 17, 2010 at 8:52 am
I am thinking about adding to my classes some Twitter uses mentioned in the matrix. In the meantime, I already use twitter to notify students of deadlines, interesting web links, etc. I do this within my course management system (D2L), making the process very convenient. Also in the interest of immediacy and convenience, my tweets are automatically sent to a course page in my Facebook acount. My ‘course fans’are then notified and can see the announcements there as well as on Twitter. Finally, my tweets are also sent as text messages to my students’ cell phones (provided they have opted in to this service).
ctel_furman - August 19, 2010 at 9:02 pm
The matrix is a great summary. Thanks! I was initially a Twitter skeptic but utilized the tool in first year seminar last fall. Follow the link below for a review and changes I’ll be making this year. I also included some detail on setting up a Twitter group. http://mikewiniski.com/blog/?p=148