Twitter in the Classroom

I saw an interesting post today over at academhack about the use of Twitter in the classroom.  The author stated their initial concerns about digital communications through the internet:

I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears

They then went on to show how Twitter has come to be an important tool in the academic world.  Here are a few of the examples cited:

1. Class Chatter: The first thing I noticed when the class started using Twitter was how conversations continued inside and outside of class
2. Classroom Community: Once students started twittering I think they developed a sense of each other as people beyond the classroom space, rather than just students they saw twice a week for an hour and a half
3. Instant Feedback: Because Twitter is always on, and gets pushed to your cell phone if you set it up this way, it is a good way to get instant feedback. I was prepping for a lecture and wanted to know if students shared a particular movie reference, I asked via Twitter and got instant responses. Students can also use this when doing their classwork, trying to understand the material.
4. Follow a Professional: Students can follow someone else who is on Twitter, who interests them. For example if they are thinking about journalism they should follow NewMediaJim who works for NBC and Tweets about being on Airforce One, covering the Middle East etc. This is a rare inside, “real-time” view into journalism. He is followed by over 2,500 people at this point.

The list goes on and I invite you to check it out.  I found some things a bit surprising, for instance, they said that Twitter is good for teaching grammar …. I would have never guessed this.  Why you ask ?

Because of its short form those who tweet often abbreviate and abuse grammar rules, developing their own unique “twitter rules.” This helps to demonstrate, both how all communication needs rules/structure and how important something like a comma or a period can be. (Some Tweets become really ambiguous because of their lack of punctuation.)

It is amazing to me how many great uses for Twitter we see cropping up all over the net, if the service could just stay up for a solid week it would be all the better.  But I love how Twitter continues to create communities, scholastic or otherwise.  What a great way to ask your teacher or classmates a question about an assignment and get instant feedback.  That way you don’t have to wait for the next classroom meeting to get your question answered.

And best of all ?  He mentions our very own DC friend and cameraman extraordinaire NewMediaJim !!