Learning & Teaching

At first, I was a doubter.

I just couldn’t see the benefits of Twitter, in fact quite the opposite was true, on a number of occasions I publicly berated it.

So what is it?

Twitter is a free  micro-blogging service, allowing you to  communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I see it as a step up from SMS text and not quite blogging, a fast and easy way to communicate and network. It’s also incredibly addictive, a recent tweet I received only the other day described it as “the digital equivalent of popping bubble wrap” which is fairly accurate.

It wasn’t until much later, while listening to a podcast of Clay Shirky, he described Twitter as being a ‘stream of consciousness’ in which you can filter and tap into at any time. This sparked my curiosity and persuaded me to at least install the free software then and there, on the bus, via my iPhone. And… I still didn’t ‘get it’.

After a couple of months of persevering (on and off, more off than on) I was ready to cast Twitter into digital oblivion. It wasn’t until I attended the Handheld Learning 08 conference that I discovered an underground digital world in which tweets were being swapped and shared discretely. Comments from parts of the conference that I couldn’t attend kept me informed of happenings, general theories and feelings riddled the airwaves. I had entered this particular ‘stream of consciousness’ and it wasn’t long before the small band of renegades grew to become a larger network. At the same time, my own tweets were being followed by several members of staff and students 500 miles north of my location in Glasgow. It was also a great way to gauge the ‘mood’ in the room, like passing notes under the table at school, commenting on your teachers poor choice of clothing… This time opinions on the speakers content and idea’s were being discussed, both positively and critically. The hash tag prefix (a way of labeling and grouping tweets to be filtered at a later date)  #hhl08 was used and the tweet streams would be made available on the website later. This was a great way to gauge audience reactions and allow speakers to judge what worked and what didn’t. Could a lecturer use this feature to poll the learning experience of their learners? I honestly can’t see why not. This form of discrete evaluation would allow those shy or ‘not wanting to look stupid’ attitudes to disperse. Even though it’s not an anonymous method, there is something to be said for not having to speak out loud for the less confident learners.

At scheduled breaks in the conference I met up with a few of the, until then,  faceless tweeters. The power of this relatively new medium began to sink in. In the hotel after the conference I began to reflect on how to harness the potential of Twitter within educational  institutions, particularly my own. It seemed to come into it’s own when used as on a mobile platform. It was certainly ubiquitous (the buzz word at the conference) and had a certain amount of kudos with the likes of Stephen Fry an active user.

Shortly after I returned from the conference I made another stride deeper into the Twitterverse, I secured money to implement my m-SM (mobile Stage Management) pilot scheme. We now had 5 iPod Touch devices within the department, a perfect platform to begin using Twitter. Twitterific (an iPod application) was free and one of the first downloads on the scheme. At first the tweets were fairly banal and of a social nature but that was to be expected during this orientation period. The students were getting used to the devices at this stage. There also wasn’t an immediate uptake as neither myself nor my students really knew whether or not Twitter would be of any great use to us.

In a fairly radical move, earlier on this year I decided to experiment with Twitter on a larger scale. This time it was with the 1st Year Production students as part of their Stage Management brief. They were asked to set up both WordPress and Twitter accounts. I wanted to experiment with Twitter as a note-taking tool to help feed their reflective practice. I then asked them to RSS their tweets to a column in  their blogs, at a glance they could ‘collect’ their thoughts and idea’s in a micro format and use them to enhance their reflections. For an entire week they Twittered and blogged accordingly and the results went far beyond my expectations. With the exception of about 10% of the cohort, everybody used both mediums to communicate, network and reflect.

With the Twitter streams busier than ever, the 2nd Year SMs rejoined the party. With Twitter it does seem to be the rule that ‘the more the merrier’. I now notice distinct bucks and trends in the student experience from the constant stream of tweets emanating from the student network. They are open and honest about their evaluation of classes and learning sessions. The analysis can’t be that deep with a 140 character limit, but does it need to be?

I am still following all of the delegates I met in the Twtterverse at HHL07 and have built up a network of educationalists and learning technologists, most are on Twitter to collaborate and share. From these collaborations I have gleened many idea’s and useful links, the most significant of which being a tweet from Louise Drumm (Learning Technologist at Napier University) who has asked to use portions of my bog and some of my tweets as examples. I am also meeting Kath Trinder (Learning Technologist at Glasgow Caledonian University) for coffee next week to tap her for idea’s. Neither of which I have ever met in person, only through Twitter. It’s also a great networking tool!

Clay Shirky’s book ‘Here Come’s Everybody’ outlines some of the more serious usages of Twitter. An example he gives is of political activists in Egypt, where having a Twitter account has made the difference between imprisoned ativists being tortured on not. Quite simply, if a lot of people know that you are held captive in jail, then the chance of any human right violation against you is greatly reduced. All it takes is one tweet and the world knows of your plight and if you have sympathetic followers on Twitter then you have a great chance of escaping torture. Corrupt governments can’t shut down a free democratic online system when they aren’t directly hosting it.

In summary (140 characters) Twitter is:

A tool that has great educational potential, promotes networking and communication. Offers simple evaluation in the classroom and it’s cool.