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Tweeting Your Way toImproved #Writing,

#Reflection, and #Community

Alice Louise Kassens

Roanoke College

kassens@roanoke.edu

NETA Fall 2013Austin, TX

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Can we harness 

social media to 

work with us in the 

classroom?

Social media is here

It is very popular

Economists are not great at 

embracing technology in the

classroom

Students en joy it

If  you can’t beat it…

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What is Twitter?O Online microblogging

technology

OPost “tweets” up to140 characters

O ~200 million activeusers, ~400 milliontweets/day

O Free service,www.twitter.com 

O Accessed throughvariety of portals:cellphone, computer,

tabletO Tweets can include

pictures and videos

O User’s twitter pagecan be customizedusing templates

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@kassensecon122

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 Twitter in the classroomO Twitter has been

shown to improve:

O EngagementO Participation

O Writing

O Community

O Learning

O Memory

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 Twitter and writing/reflectionO 140 character limit

forces succinctness

O “electronic editor”

O Brevity of tweets =powerful tool forteaching writing &other communicationskills

#writing

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 Twitter and writing/reflectionO Writing about

economics=vital

test of understanding

O Challenge in 100-level courses

O A key to goodwriting=developing an argument

#reflection

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What we didO Social media project

O ~25 student avg.

O 15% of course grade

O Computer lab

O Screen projecting Twitterfeed

O Unique hashtag(#kassensecon122)

O Ten graded tweets

O Rubric developed

with classO Assignments both

in and out of classperiod

O Review tweets in

class

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Preparation (in class)O Brief introduction to Twitter (many

students had never used Twitter)

O Set up accounts

O 10-15 minutes to personalize page,follow, tweet

O Develop rubric: “What makes a goodtweet?” Facultyshould

already befamiliar

with Twitter

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Preparation (in class)Twitter grading rubric

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Sample assignmentO State of the Union

Address 2013

1. Watch address w/in24 hours of event

2.  Tweet severalcomments orquestions

3. One tweet graded

O Purpose

O Increase student

awareness of current issues

O Apply coursematerial to theseissues

O Communicate inthoughtful/concisemanner

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Sample assignment…

…

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Sample assignment

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Unintended consequenceO Twitter expands the

classroom beyond thephysical walls

O Global conversations

O “guest speakers”

O Community can bedeveloped in typicallyisolated experiences

#community

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Suggestions Benefits

O Hold class in lab

O Establish ground rules

O Allow practice tweets

O Select unique #

O Grade tweets viastudent page

O Follow your studentsO Assign a significant

weight to assignment

O Expand classroom, becomepart of a larger community

O Refine reflection & writing

skills w/o a large writtenassignment

O Increase engagement

O Demonstrate responsible useof social media

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Difficulties Cautions

O Challenging withlarge classes

O Currently are notreliableapplications tocollect tweets fora record

O Professor shouldbe comfortable

with thetechnology

O Pick a uniquehashtag for all

assignmentsO Keep tweets to

course material

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 Thank you!

Follow me @RnningEconomist

Follow my class 

@kassensecon122

Read my paper http://ssrn.com/abstract=2331004

Email me:

kassens@roanoke.edu

A l i c e  K 

 a s s e n s