Twitter is getting more popular with professors. But they’re largely using it for a purpose outside the classroom—sharing information with peers, according to a recent report about Twitter in higher education published by Faculty Focus.
Of the 1,372 people surveyed this year—the majority of them professors, but also some administrators and other college employees—35.2 percent were using Twitter. That’s a nearly 5 percent increase from 2009. The survey found that Twitter was most popular as a way for people to share information with colleagues and get news in real time. Less popular were teaching uses like communicating with students and using Twitter as a learning tool in the classroom.
The report comes as other researchers are discovering that Twitter can have classroom benefits. Reynol Junco, who studies social media as an associate professor of academic development and counseling at Lock Haven University, has found that the microblogging platform can improve student engagement. For example, students are more likely to continue discussion outside the classroom, he says, because they can log on to Twitter from their dorm rooms. With a growing number of academics on the site, he adds, students can use the network to seek their expertise.
Mr. Junco doesn’t find the study’s results discouraging. Professors, he says, have an easier time seeing how Twitter can be a useful teaching tool once they start using it to share information with peers.
And while Twitter hasn’t gained as much popularity with students as Facebook has, Mr. Junco sees that as an advantage. Twitter can become the social network they use for academic work. Before Mr. Junco started using Twitter in class, he says, hardly any of his students had Twitter accounts. “Now I hear students say, ‘Facebook is where I go to socialize, and Twitter is where I go to work,’” Mr. Junco says.
7 Responses to More Professors Are Using Twitter—but Mostly Not for Teaching
kosboot - October 4, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Whenever I’ve attended a conference that had a technology aspect to it, the Twitter stream has been extremely busy. At last week’s Web 2.0 Expo in New York, I’m sure there were *hundreds* of tweets going out each day (confession: I was one of the participants). I’ve followed various THATcamp unconferences (dealing with digital humanities) and I sense that many participants – mostly graduate students – have a good understanding of Twitter and its usefulness as a conference backchannel.When students realize that following certain hashtags and people means joining the community, I gather they’ll start using it more often.
arrive2__net - October 4, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Given the number of communication / social media channels out there (including Facebook, LinkedIn, Blackboard, etc.) Twitter seems to be keeping up with the competition. The built-in 140 character limit makes the sender think about communicating just the essence of their message, and limits the amount of time the receivers have to commit to reading it. Its relatively easy to scan and skip unnecessary or excessive Tweets. That 140 character limitation can be a benefit in contexts where people may tend to “drone on” when only quick, light commentary is called-for. It is easy to believe that Twitter could have some benefits for a course where it allows student conversation and engagement to continue after class. I don’t think texting during class would be beneficial at all, since that truly is most likely to just be a distraction. Twitter is like a city, in that there may be a lot of irrelevant futile and frivolous conversations on Twitter, but then there is also a lot of meaningful, informative and enlightening conversation going on too. There’s a certain amount of very strongly held and popular negative stereotyping about Twitter (I recently found out) but Twitter is actually huge and complex (again, like a city). What you get from Twitter depends on who you are, what you seek, and how good you are at finding it, and for some people, in my opinion, it truly has nothing to offer because they just don’t like the limitations. The Chronicle, NY Times, Business Week, Washington Post, and many other credible and well-informed sources are on Twitter ( as well as about 1/3 of professors, based on the article), so if you are seeking that kind of serious content you can find it on Twitter. Bernard SchusterArrive2.net
eszter - October 5, 2010 at 8:17 am
It would be helpful if you could post and take into consideration the methodology of a survey when writing up its results. Do we know who subscribes to Faculty Focus and who would be on the publisher’s subscription lists? Are they in any way representative of faculty at large? When reporting basic percentages of use, it would be helpful to know what population is being covered.From the report, fyi:”This survey was conducted in July – August, 2010. An email invitation to participate in the online survey was distributed to Faculty Focus subscribers, as well as to select in-house lists of Magna Publications. Faculty Focus also notified its Twitter followers of the survey via its accounthttp://twitter.com/facultyfocus.”
ryancordell - October 5, 2010 at 10:08 am
This past August I wrote How to Start Tweeting (and Why You Might Want To) for ProfHacker (another Chronicle blog). The post should give academics who are interested in joining the academic twitter community a head start.
briancroxall - October 5, 2010 at 10:14 am
I agree with the conclusions of this survey that Twitter can be a valuable place to share information with peers. But I also have had a lot of good experiences using it in classes. Like ryancordell, I wrote on ProfHacker about using social media in the classroom. My reflections are of course personal, but they might be of use to those considering Twitter in the classroom.
bevfreeman - October 5, 2010 at 11:09 am
So much “junk” accumulates in a Twitter account. I wonder how useful it is to have to sort through to find the meaningful – or the relevant communication – from colleagues or fellow students. I remember reading about a nationwide platform (in these pages) and would imagine this more useful since it is focused on academic and not social.
mark_sample - October 5, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Like @ryancordell and @briancroxall above, I’ve written on the Chronicle ProfHacker blog about ways to incorporate Twitter into your teaching. I’ve offered a pedagogical framework for using Twitter that shows possible activites ranging from one-way passive link-sharing to fully-engaged, reflective dialogue.I’ve also written on ProfHacker about some practical considerations of teaching with Twitter: organization, access, frequency, substance, archiving, and assessment.Regarding @bevfreeman’s point that too much junk accumulates on Twitter for it to be useful for teaching or scholarship, my glib answer is that this means one is following the wrong people. Knowing who to follow on Twitter is just as important as knowing who not to follow. When in doubt, it can useful to rely on some already assembled Twitter lists for you specific discipline or field.