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[anon11]

I've been reading the article http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/ and comments. I imagine that it won't be long before twittering will change the dynamics of classroom instruction, too. 

Has anyone observed classroom twittering yet? I think it would be very hard to manage a classroom with back channel streams of information competing for lecture and discussion, but maybe I'm just not ready for a brave new world. Thoughts?

[big_giant_head]

No twittering yet, but today they were Facebook IMming each other after they read each others' drafts.

[zombie]

One of my friends from grad school uses it in class.  He has the class twitter page up, and students can chime in using it.  Supposedly, it helps with those quiet students who don't like to actually talk.  I haven't heard how he makes sure they're only twittering on HIS page, though.

[barred_owl]

I live under a rock, apparently.  When you say that your friend has a class twitter page up, zombie, do you mean that your friend projects the tweets on a screen during class?  If so, are they projected concurrently with his lecture (assuming it's a lecture) as responses to questions?  I can see how this might get quieter students to contribute, of course.  But if the tweets come in more or less randomly while he's speaking, wouldn't that be a little bit distracting?

[francie_]

Some of the comments to that article are truly frightening.  I really cannot see how tweeting during a conference talk is anything more that high-tech note-passing. 

I am taking a hard line against texting (and tweeting, if that's what they're doing) in class.  For my discipline, I see no "added value" to this form of communication.  The only screen the students need to be looking at is the one with the pretty pictures being shown on it, and they need to share their comments with the whole class.   

[svenc]

Did you see this article from a few months back?

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Professor-Encourages-Students/4619

[mended_drum]

Since I have small class (under twenty), I just forbid the use of cell phones and allow only structured use of laptops.  If it ever gets out of control, I plan to break into the classroom in the middle of the night and repaint it with that signal-blocking paint.

[airball]

Here's a video about a prof (Hi Monica!) using twitter in a history class at UT-Dallas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

[punchnpie]

I really cannot see how tweeting during a conference talk is anything more that high-tech note-passing. 

I understand what you're saying, but my first experience with conference tweeting was quite beneficial. Most conferences I attend are rather large. You can't go to every panel in which you're interested. Having people tweet about the panel (as opposed to personal tweets) was great. I learned a few things and some folks wrote so well, it was like being at the panel.

I know the conference planners encouraged tweeting in general, and there was a Twitter site for the conference, but don't know if they planned for people to tweet about individual panels or if that just happened. I thought it was great and have seen it happen at a couple of conferences since then. But yeah, personal tweeting probably is like passing note, but that type of disengagement is probably along the same line as reading emails. If I pull out my iTouch, only someone sitting near me would know whether I was taking notes or reading email (I've done both). What are they gonna do- make everyone put their devices in a box at the door?

[archman]

I read an article a couple months back that showed over 60% of people dropped Twitter after 1 month of use. Apparently, the majority of users felt it got old real fast, and they balked at the monthly fees.

I wonder if that 60% figure is still accurate.

[anon11]

One of my friends from grad school uses it in class.  He has the class twitter page up, and students can chime in using it.  Supposedly, it helps with those quiet students who don't like to actually talk. 

This is actually one of my concerns about twittering. Since it's anonymous (I think - or at least, it can be hard to identify the sender) would that make students less likely to speak up?  One of my teaching goals is to have students become more comfortable expressing themselves cogently, respectfully, and succinctly, but I think I might be less likely to get verbal remarks or questions if twittering is available in class. Does anyone have any ideas whether twittering in conferences or classes would stimulate or suppress questions and discussions?

On another note, I find it hard enough to keep up with a lecturer sometimes - it seems that following both streams simultaneously (lecture with slides, etc. + twitter) would be distracting. But then, I don't think that multitasking works very well in general.

[kedves]

Unless work groups, staff meetings, and community events are going to become Twitter-based instead of traditionally person-speaking based, how does it benefit students to encourage them to use this form of communication in classes?  In the real world, they need to learn how to participate the usual way if they want to be heard.

[barred_owl]

I agree, kedves.  I really don't like the idea of a twitterfall (until today, I hadn't heard that term before) happening simultaneously with a lecture or other activity because it seems too distracting.  Nevertheless, I find myself trying to think of other ways that Twitter or something like it might be useful as part of a planned activity in a classroom.

Are there ways that a series of tweets in response to, say, a question posed by the instructor might be useful, as a stand-alone event that doesn't interfere with whatever else is going on?  I keep thinking of an off-the-cuff idea I proposed when an interviewer griped about students texting in class; my remark was something to the effect that if students need to text (any prohibition of phones in class notwithstanding), that perhaps one could ask students text the correct sequences of codons, anticodons, and amino acids in a class on protein synthesis, for instance.*  Could something like that be adapted for use with Twitter?  I just don't know enough about twittering to be able to either embrace it or completely discount it as a possible tech enhancement in a classroom.




*FWIW, the interviewer's reply to my off-the-cuff idea was, "They'd still get it wrong."  He did not hold a very high opinion of his students, apparently.

[cityprof]

I read an article a couple months back that showed over 60% of people dropped Twitter after 1 month of use. Apparently, the majority of users felt it got old real fast, and they balked at the monthly fees.

What monthly fees? Unless I'm missing something, a Twitter account is free.

[archman]

Here is a weblink to an article describing the loss of users after one month.

http://www.businessinsider.com/60-of-twitter-users-quit-after-a-month-2009-4

I do not see direct mention of user fees. But from what I gather from other searches, it's not Twitter that charges fees, but some cellphone carriers for use of the service.