Microblobbing in Higher Education

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Microblogging -Potentiale an der Hochschule

Sandra Schaffert & Martin Ebner

Microblogging - Potentiala an der Hochschule Sandra Schaffert, Martin Ebner - Learntec 2010

The monthly rate of new user accounts on Twitter is currently around 6.2 million new accounts per month (or 2-3 per second)

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http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=1827

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• A large percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive, with about 25% of accounts having no followers and about 40% of accounts having never sent a single Tweet

• About 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ventriloblog/17960188

With 75 million total accounts, an active user base of around 20% still leaves around 15 million highly active tweeters

Microblogging is a small-scale form of blogging, generally made up of short, succinct messages, used by both users and

business to share news, post status updates and carry on conversations Templeton, 2008

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Higher Education occurs usually (not always) in overcrowdedlecture halls, students sitting under their laptops

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Study 1 (2007)Is microblogging a possibility for a specific community to exchange ideas, interests and

information?

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Overview Study 1

• Used Microblog application: Jaiku• Own Channel: „elearn“• Own FlickR account for pictures• Community: 23 German speaking EduBloggers (5 women / 18 men)• Duration: September - October 2007• Outcome: 240 posting, 201 comments

• Small usergroup (23; 12 filled out evaluation forms)• just testing - 72% „I used it for the first time“• Outcomes? „not sure there is any potential“

Recommendations for HEI

• some general pros• additional documentation effects • possibility to monitor students• no time constraints• mobile devices

• but no clear scenario for usage

Study 2 (2008)Can microblogging be used during scientific

conferences? Enhancement of live presentations?

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„in the background we discussed things more

deeply than the guys on the stage“

„Twitter can be distracting - you pay less attention“

versus

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before

during

Twitter stream at conference (ED - Media 08)

Results:

• About 150 participants (keynote)• 54 tweets / 74 minutes (before/during/after)• 4 categories of tweets: - Citations - Discussion - Hyperlinks - Comments

• Only 10 active users wrote more than 5 tweets• 2 users wrote more than 50% of all tweets

Similar: ED-Media 2010

Two users accounted24% of all tweets

• no continous microblogging on walls! (too much distraction for students and teachers, just a few make the noise)

Study 3 (2008)Interactive Lecturing by Integrating Mobile

Devices and Micro-blogging in Higher Education

Mass EducationInstant Feedback

Enhancement of lecture slides

Positive results:

• Anonymous Feedback• Device Independent• quick and easy

• 33 microblogs in 45 minutes - no real content• hard to follow for teachers

• timely limited interaction phases (open questions, feedback) are helpful and channel attention

• or: a moderator for microblogging

Study 4 (2008)Can Microblogs and Weblogs change

traditional scientific writing?

16 students 4 MB per week

10 weeks

Positive results:

• Exchange of information• Useful for fast discussions• Help to share links and ideas

Differences between Microblogging and Blogging

• Blogging is reflective writing, short essays

• Microblogging is searching and sharing• more communication/interaction (replies)

• Information Overflow• Only for people with same interests• „maybe“ useful for virtual announcements• students underestimated the work load• continious attention is needed

• Microblogging seems to be usable for e.g. brainstorming and (fast)collections of links, pictures, videos• Usage for formative assessment: continious contributions, assessed by teachers• limited to fitting lecture topics (no fixed factual knowledge, eventually media related)

Study 5 (2009)Microblogs in Higher Education – A chance to facilitate

informal and process-oriented learning?

On average each student wrote 315 posts. Over a period of 70 days this resulted in around 4.5 posts each calendar

day. If the observation time is reduced by holidays (42 days) the number increases to 7.5 posts/each working day

• private talk is normal (about one third)• Microblogging is a COMMUNICATION tool, that includes private talk• if you want to support communication (or microblogging) the task should be open

Objectives for the Usageof Microblogging in HEI

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Microblogging for Optimisation of HEI

• Fast interactive, colllaborative collections• documentation and accessibility of collections • quality assurance (monitoring, feedback)

Microblogging for Innovation of HEI

• tool for new assessment forms (formative assessment)• provides new (more) communication

possibilities (between teachers and students)

You will find Martin at Twitter

@mebner

... google to find Sandra