Twitter in the Classroom

Research suggests that “Twitter use in higher education may facilitate increased student engagement with course content and increased student-to-student or student-instructor interactions – potentially leading to stronger positive relationships that improve learning and to the design of richer experiential or authentic learning experiences” (Greenhow & Gleason, 2012).

To incorporate Twitter in your classroom consider these ideas:

• Create a feed for your classroom so you can tweet about upcoming assignments, events and class news.
• Commit to posting at regular intervals, but vary the time of day of the posts.
• Post supplementary materials like links to articles and videos so students can continue learning even when class is over.
• Track hash tags, memes, and current events by setting up specific feeds that the entire class can monitor.
• Connect with other classrooms and professors to increase communication and build community.
• Follow other educators’ tweets to keep with the latest teaching trends, get ideas and and support one another.
• Suggest people, organizations, journals, magazines for your students to follow.
• Be personal, yet avoid overly personal comments.

Greenhow, C., & Gleason, B. (2012). Twitteracy: Tweeting as a new literacy practice. Educational Forum 76(4), 464-478. doi:10.1080/00131725.2012.709032

Online Colleges Staff. (2012, July 26). A teacher’s guide to social media. Online Colleges. Retrieved July 2, 2013, from http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/07/26/a-teachers-guide-to-social-media/

Edudemic Staff. The teacher’s guide to Twitter. Edudemic. Retrieved July 2, 2013, from http://www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/