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Case studies of practice Evaluaon of Twier’s potenal in Higher Educaon is beginning to be published and some disnct uses have emerged exemplified by four case studies below. Case study 1. Twier as broadcast medium (University of Bath) Dr Sabah Abdullah used Twier for an undergraduate module in Economics (Ramsden 2009). Twier was used to supplement the recommended reading list with relevant news items. A module-specific Twier account was created using the module code and instrucons were provided to students on how to create their own Twier account, and on how to follow the module account. Use of Twier was encouraged through references in lectures. Generally, Dr Abdullah posted the URL of relevant arcles via Twier. Case study 2. Twier as conversaonal medium (University of Texas, Dallas) Dr Monica Rankin used Twier as a means of encouraging greater student parcipaon in large-group classes. Her intenon was to “pull more students into a class discussion which [she] wouldn’t ordinarily be able to do with that many people” (Kesmit3 2009). Her students reported that the experiment worked well and helped them, in the words of one, to “pipe up and be heard” in a large-group context that can be “a lile inmidang” (Kesmit3 2009). Hashtags – e.g. #h1302w08 – were used that included both a module code as well as a reference to the week in which the discussion was taking place. This case study illustrates the deployment of Twier as a conversaonal medium used to enable in-class (‘backchannels’) and well as post-lecture comments and reflecons. Case study 3. Twier for learning communies (University of Colorado, Denver) Dunlap & Lowenthal (2009) have recently published an evaluaon of their use of Twier on a module on instruconal design and technology. The authors encouraged their students to use Twier in a variety of ways: to post quesons and queries to one another as well as to the course team, to send student-to-student direct messages, to tweet comments on relevant news events, to share resources, to reports on conferences that were not aended by some of their fellow students, to links to student blogs and to exchange personal informaon (e.g. a student tweeng they’re red and off to bed which receives two replies wishing her a good night’s sleep). The authors claim that the use of Twier can enhance students’ percepon of a sense of ‘social presence’, an important quality that helps promote student involvement, commitment and retenon. They conclude that Twier is good for “sharing, collaboraon, brainstorming, problem solving, and creang within the context of our moment-to-moment experiences” (Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009). connued... Twitter in Higher Education
