TWITTER - Classroom

I have to admit I was hesitant to hop on the "Twitter" bandwagon. I figured if obnoxious Hollywoodites were crazy about a micro-blogging tool that it couldn't be that beneficial to education. Right? I was negatively biased from the start, thinking Twitter was just a way for everyone to announce what they had for breakfast or the latest Foo Fighters' concert they attended.

Knowing our collective intelligence was going to touch on the importance of tweeting in learning, I figured I need to start my own Twitter account. I posted a handful of my own Tweets and started following others. To my surprise, I found Twitter a great way to keep abreast of learning technologies. And then I stumbled across this:

The DigMe program at the University of Minnesota embraces the research that shows that "people will need critical media literacy to succeed in 21st-century society" and encourages high school students in underprivileged areas to use digital media (including Web 2.0 tools) combined with critical thinking skills in their classrooms. Many high school students and college-age students are using the digital media anyway. Teachers in this program embrace the tweeting, wiki posting, Facebook status updates and such and use it to reach out to the students, connect with them on a personal level, and deliver course content.

I was wrong. I am starting to dig Twitter and the ways it can be used to enhance education.

Some Twitter Uses in the Classroom

• Teach while you're away. Gone a lot from your classroom? Be there virtually for a Q&A session with your students. It worked for this instructor.
• Create a classroom community. This UT Dallas professor requires his students to use Twitter to post messages and questions to the class along with requiring them to follow his Twitter feed. This casual and intellectual virtual connection between learners and educator has helped to create a positive learning community.
• Streamline class communications. Want to reach your students sooner with class announcements and assignment reminders? Twitter is a great option in lieu of email that saves you time as a teacher. Read more.
• Stimulate discussions. . . During class. One professor from Pennsylvania State University @ University Park encourages his students to tweet comments, questions, related articles, etc. during his lectures. Chaos? Maybe. But this virtual way of "passing notes" has led to deeper understanding and application of course content.
• The options can be simple but are plentiful. See 50 other ways to use Twitter as a useful teaching tool.

Twitter has the capability of fueling learning when students are directed to use it in productive and collaborative ways. Check out this article for some more reasons why you should consider using Twitter in YOUR classroom.

FACEBOOK - Classroom

Facebook. Everyone is on it. Ok, maybe not everyone, but over 22,000,000 college-aged students are accessing Facebook to meet their friends, post their current status, network with those who share the same interests, play online games with other facebook members, cultivate farmlands in a social utility game, share messages. In fact, students spend so much time on Facebook that one study done in 2008 claims that students who use Facebook have lower GPAs than those they don't. The study claims this is because students spend the time that they should be studying on this social networking tool.

Is there a place for Facebook in the college classroom? I believe there is. Consider this - If students are spending time on this social networking tool anyway, instructors would be wise to use this to their advantage. Instead of letting Facebook become a distraction, college instructors could use this social network as a study tool to reach out to their students and engage them in their courses. Here are a few tools on Facebook that would enhance classroom learning:

1. Groups and Status Updates. The following presentation given at the Center for Teaching and Learning Advancement at Elon University, offers instructors step-by-step instructions on how to create a group for students to join and tips on how to best use basic Facebook tools, such as status updates, events, etc.

2. Coursefeed Application. Facebook has actually created a Facebook learning community called Coursefeed. To access Coursefeed, you need to log into Facebook and start the application. Coursefeed allows instructors to sync their Blackboard courses with Facebook so students do not have to login to a separate Blackboard account, to access any open education courses that are available and allows educators to create their own course space where students can form study groups and the class can upload and share files.

3. Courses Application. This application was created by a former high-school teacher and is meant to act like a course management system similar to Blackboard. Instructors can upload and share files, have class discussions and manage a course calendar. Though many universities have a course management system already in place, this tool would be great for other learning institutions that do not have this tool available. *NOTE: I attempted to try this application out and it is apparently having some bugs in it. I think the idea is great, though, and I hope the creators can figure out the problems soon.

All of these tools that are available to classroom instructors just emphasize the idea technology and social networking tools can be a positive motivation to learning.

My advice to classroom instructors - give it a try. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!