Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

Paul Smalley – Edge Hill University

SOLSTICE & CLTR Conference 2012

13th & 14th June 2012

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Twitter• Journalists and academics direct followers to

longer blogs or articles

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Action Research• Undergraduate wider reading• Connectivist Paradigm (Siemens 2005, 2006)• ‘Educator as Concierge’ (Bonk 2007, Siemens

2008)

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Twitter• ‘means of didactics’ and ‘instruments for

communication management’ (Pleil, 2008:6)• ‘educator as concierge’ - directs the learners

to resources with the intention of encouraging learners to explore on their own

• Millennial Learners?

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Rinaldo et al (2011) suggest three uses for Twitter in the virtual classroom:

• Firstly as a demonstration of marketing techniques (their study involved students on a marketing degree),

• secondly as a micro-publishing outlet for the lecturer and

• thirdly as a method of communicating with students to make administrative announcements.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Wheeler (2009)• “‘Twit Links’ Share a hyperlink – a directed

task for students – each is required to regularly share one new hyperlink to a useful site they have found.” is the closest to the use of Twitter in this study.

• the tutor-tweeter would be the main contributor, at least in the early stages.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Action Research

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• October 2011 to March 2012. • @PabloPedantic • 2011 - two articles each day • Tweets were related to religion, education or

religious education • #k23re.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• 18 Year 2 Undergraduates • 3 were already regular Tweeters,• 4 were passive tweeters and • 11 had never used Twitter before. • All but one of the students owned internet-

enabled smartphones • All had internet access via computer.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Focus Group

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Before the Project• little direction as to what to read• Assessment based; • wider reading using search engines such as Google to

research a topic, or finding a link off a ‘general’ website such as bbc.co.uk.

• I might happen to come across something on the BBC website and follow a link.

• If I’m honest, in terms of wider reading, I wouldn’t know where to look so I just did what was needed for the assignment

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• The English Baccalaureate

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• One month in...• I didn’t know how to use Twitter but now I’m

following loads of education people rather than me mates and things.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• I was on Twitter, but my following has changed: I use Facebook for social things and use Twitter because all of it is like educational, religion, anything like of interest to me; it’s not really a social network where you network with people that you like see everyday anyway.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• ease of access.• Yeah I just click on it; you know the link’s

already there so it is easier to access.• As someone who likes Twitter – you’re on there

anyway and it comes up. • I like it because I’m on Twitter - any time I’m

bored I’m on it.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• I think it’s been very useful and I think it is nice that you are respecting us and sharing all the current affairs in education with us, because, without that we wouldn’t be discussing things that are going to affect us

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• I really feel you are trying to educate us

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Six months later• When you first started, I didn’t know how to

use it at all and now I am always on it.• I was into it before and I’ve read things that

you’ve Tweeted but because of the things I’ve read I’ve started following other people, so it sort of brings up some interesting, different, sort of newsy articles that you find yourself reading that you wouldn’t normally.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Usage was related to student workload• When we have assignments I don’t look it but

when we don’t have assignments I’m on it all the time.

• If I’m writing an essay might go on Twitter a few times as a break

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Access via smartphones• Work/life blur (ClearSwift 2011)• Volume – search #k23re

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Choosing what to read• These included the time of day• a break in the flow of the days duties, • ‘looking interesting’. • Re-Tweeting

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• The Archbishop of Canterbury• Judaism assignment• I like knowing the stuff that might concern us

now or in the future. I wouldn’t have known any of the stuff that is going on if it wasn’t for Twitter.

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

@PabloPedantic

• Conclusion – Connected Learners

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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BibliographyBonk, C. (2007). USA today leads to tomorrow: Teachers as online concierges and can Facebook pioneer save face? http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/2007/10/usa today leads to tomorrow teachers as.html‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ [accessed 11th October 2011]ClearSwift (2011) Work Life Web 2011 https://info.clearswift.com/express/clients/clearhq/papers/Clearswift_report_WorkLifeWeb_2011.pdf [accessed 6th June 2012]Gillie, C. (2011) English Baccalaureate House of Commons Library SN/SP/6045 15th November www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06045.pdf [accessed 8th June 2012]Pleil, T (2008) Social Media in PR Education http://www.slideshare.net/apalme2003/social-media-in-pr-education/ [accessed 7th October 2011]Rinaldo, S. B., Tapp, S., and Laverie, D. A. (2011) Learning by Tweeting: Using Twitter as a Pedagogical Tool, Journal of Marketing Education 33(2) 193– 203Siemens, G. (2005) Connectivism: Learning as Network-Creation http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/networks.htm [accessed 2nd June 2012]Siemens, G. (2006) Knowing Knowledge http://www.elearnspace.org/KnowingKnowledge_LowRes.pdf [accessed 21st March 2012]Siemens, G (2008) Learning and Knowing in Networks: Changing roles for Educators and Designers, Paper presented to ITFORUM, http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf [accessed 7th October 2011]Wheeler, S (2009) ‘Teaching with Twitter’, Learning with ‘e’s http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/teaching-with-twitter.html [accessed 8th October 2011]Wright, N (2010) Twittering in teacher education: reflecting on practicum experiences, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 25:3, 259-265

Using Twitter to Enhance Students’ Wider Subject Awareness

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• Appendix: Principles of Connectivism: (Siemens, 2006: 31)

• Learning and knowledge require diversity of opinions to present the whole…and to permit selection of best approach. • Learning is a network formation process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. • Knowledge rests in networks.• Knowledge may reside in non-human appliances , and learning is enabled/facilitated by technology.• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known. • Learning and knowing are constant, on going processes (not end states or products). • Ability to see connections and recognize patterns and make sense between fields, ideas, and concepts is the core skill for individuals today. • Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. • Decision-making is learning. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations i n the information climate affecting the decision.