Get Your Students Hired
I agree James, monitoring social media in class would be a huge burden for us in our environment.
I think this would be hard for us to monitor and would easily lead to unproductive time with the general maturity level of students.
A great use of twitter would be for creating a virtual office hour forum. You could post to your twitter and receive tweets back from the group. You could reply and post link to additional materials. It is a much more engaging and real time apparatus compared to asynchronous discussion boards.
Depending on your course subject matter, Twitter can also be an excellent way to keep current on news relevant to the course. I don't generally use Twitter to directly give information to my students, but I do encourage students to follow industry leaders and news sites, then discuss those items in class. Students that use Twitter to stay informed provide valuable insights during those discussions.
At our school, we do not use any social media for instructional purposes. We use a power point presentation followed by live lab work. This is now the current method of instruction utilized by most career institutes which cater to the automotive industry. This is not to say we won't ever use different methods of media instruction in the future, just not as of now.
Our school permits the use of Twitter for our instructors and students. I was shocked when I polled the class and saw there was Zero interest in participating in Twitter. However, we do use a class facebook page for interactions between the students, the instructor and the program director. I wonder if it is age related?
I experimented with Twitter but it flopped. Incredibly, younger students have moved on and older students complain about too many accounts and tend to traditional email, FB, or commnicate within the institutions established LMS. I keep an open mind and will seize upon any tech that advances communication and learning.
Agreed, these are great examples and I can't wait to integrate this into my teaching strategy.
Brandon,
Great, please come back and share your experience with the group!
Wishing you continued success in the classroom.
Theresa Schmitt
HOnestly, I hadn't considered this before but it's such an excellent idea and I am going to incorporate this into my next Internet Marketing lesson. I see many advantages, but ease of communicating is #1.
students use twitter, but fail to understand buzz. Getting them to think about applications of Twiiter in marketing or advertising classes helps them understand how to go beyond being a follower. It also helps them build up a sense of community when you are working with students who have a limited connection at the start of a course, and lets them help drive interest. I think the roughest thing is that many instructors really fall outside of the target age range for Twitter and really ned to adapt thier way of thinking when working with it.
This is actually a new concept to me. I had previously never thought about using Twitter in the classroom. But reading the material has got me thinking.
I think it would be a very useful tool to engage the students. They can ask questions at any time and those questions can be answered in class. I'm going to try and refine and implement this idea and think of other ways Twitter might become part of my classroom.
A Twitter account can be utilized to enable the teacher and learner to receive updated information from those in the same field of study.
We can make a twitter group with the students in the class.it is very innovative and provides means to them to post,follow the latest feed also to be able to interact.this way not only it keeps them all updated ,it also provides oppurtunity to give their input.
I agree with Keegan that this is a great way to embed formative assessments into a twitter group. In addition, you could keep your students aware of homework assignments, changes due to school cancellations/emergencies, upcoming quizzes/tests etc. It is a great way to stay connected with your students, and reduces the number of excuses they can give when unprepared.
I would utilize a class Twitter group as a tool for questions, answer, and concerns that students may refer to.
Wendy,
I am glad to hear you are considering incorporating social media technologies into your curriculum. A Twitter feed is permitted by many schools as an acceptable form of communicating with current students, but it is always best to check with your Department Chair to review your school policy.
Wishing you continued success in the classroom.
Theresa Schmitt
I think this is a fantastic idea. This class has really made me look at these social media technologies in a whole new way. Thanks for opening my mind!
Carol,
I am very happy to hear this course has inspired you. Twitter is a fantastic tool, and a great way to incorporate more technology-based content delivery into your established repertoire. My personal experience has shown students are far more likely to engage with classmates when they can contribute via message board or a social media tool like Twitter. They have time to think through their comments, and for those who find it difficult to speak up in a group setting, it removes that barrier that may hold them back in the classroom environment.
Thanks again for your great feedback! Wishing you continued success in the classroom.
Theresa Schmitt
I too have been greatly inspired by this course. I have learned so much and have set as my goal to incorporate 2 new forms of interactive tech each quarter of the upcoming school year. I have decided Twitter to be one of the first ones to incorporate. I think I will start with introductory tweets and then use the forum to try to get discussions going about novels or activities done in class. I teach an 8th grade ELA class and then I teach college English at a local college. Students are often reluctant to discuss topics in the 8th grade class and I wanted to see if discussions would expand on twitter. In the college course, I may try another one for the first part or I may try another one like facebook. I need to print them off so I can review each side by side again. Did I say I LOOOOOOOVVVVEEE this class.