Joe Murphy (libraryfuture on Twitter), Science Librarian, Coordinator of Instruction and Technology,
claimed that Twitter may well be a necessary tool for this information-connected era. He introduced Twitter as a useful teaching tool. Joe used his own Twitter account as a presentation tool during yesterday’s TwTT session: http://www.twitter.com/libraryfuture.
Joe said that Twitter has been defined by many a Tweeter variously. The SMS answer service kgb.com @kgbkgb defined Twitter as a social networking site and micro-blogging platform. Another SMS answer service, ChaCha.com @ chacha, has added that it enables users to send and receive messages known as “tweets.”
Joe suggested some best practices for Twitter: you should use your real name for your Twitter account so you are easily searchable, and consider management processes like using your email for notification purposes, generate a screen name that is consistent across social networking and web utilities, and choose a clear picture for your icon.
It was noted that we should bear in mind, however, that Twitter limits your “Tweets” to 140 characters. The tool was originally built on the idea of and meant to emulate text messaging. The enforced brevity of a Tweet is a hallmark of its strength. The limitations engender both creativity and concision.
Though Twitter was designed to connect people via mobile devices and the web, it is useful beyond both for teaching and learning. Certain features of Twitter lend themselves well to educational environments such as the Twitter “#tag,” or hash tag, which is used to bring related twitter posts and tweets together. Hash tags are like categories or tags for ”Tweets.” They improve topic searchability within the Twitter-sphere at large.
(The Twitter hashtag for this event is #twtt. Many of the points made below and further discussion on this topic can be found on Twitter with this hashtag.)
Joe claimed that instructors can expect students to understand the technology of Twitter, and what they need to do with it in order to engage with the educational uses of Twitter. Hence, instructors should waste no time describing Twitter or how to use it to their students, instead they should focus on the role it will play in their course.
Joe stated that every entity engaging with information should use Twitter. Joe urged everyone,
teachers and students, to have a Twitter account to use for teaching and learning purposes. He went so far as to say that every class should be equipped with a mechanism to engage Twitter (designated accounts or hashtags etc). He then went on to describe various class-related uses of Twitter. Instructors could use Twitter as a contact point for teachers and students. One could use it for research as well - querying the Twitter-verse for sources, references, feedback or using it as a platform for idea generation. Twitter could also be used to carry a class discussion well beyond the physical classroom. You could literally deliver an entire lecture through Twitter by using it as a presentation tool [as Joe did during his portion of the Tw/TT session]. Twitter can occupy a “back-channel” for in-class exploration of topics raised. One could also use it to post links to useful materials. Course content can be delivered through Twitter. In Joe’s experience, he has found that it is useful to really practice using Twitter on your own before deploying it as a lecture tool in your classes. Twitter also gains educational ground in that it enhances engagement with new social and media literacies that he claims are core skills for modern students.
Some Best Practices: 1) the instructor must require students to follow him or her on Twitter [bear in mind that this is no different than students having your email]. 2) Consider creating hash tags for the class and for special topic-related subject areas; this will become the mutually agreed upon lingo for course-specific exploration.
Twitter-user and Tw/TT attendee, jeiesman, commented that he saw a Twitter shortfall in that it is a “here and now” medium rather than something that lends itself well to archival storage. Tools for archiving tweets should be engaged when the long term preservation of posts is important.
Joe said that this particular limitation is also its strength, it is a real-time medium. We just need to figure out which other tools will allow us to make use of Tweets to best effect. There remains the question of how best to store archived Tweets and provide students with access to those previous Tweets.
Barbara Rockenbach then introduced Eric Gordon, Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Studies at Emerson College. Eric’s Twitter account may be found at http://www.twitter.com/ericbot.
Eric started out his talk on Attention in the Classroom by saying he doesn’t celebrate Twitter just because it’s
Twitter. Eric directed our attention, rather, to the fact that we were in a classroom, and something typically happens in a classroom, but that is the question: what is it exactly that occurs in the classroom? Teaching and Learning?
Eric stated that issues of attention are a current focus in education and the media. Attention gets nothing but negative press. It certainly gets no good press. Attention is said to be in deficit, unfocused, erratic at best. So, he claimed, maybe what students’ attention needs is a new choreography for the classroom? Various social networking and other media are being used in class, we can’t deny it, so how do we channel and “regulate” their use in the classroom setting?
The traditional classroom retains this stage-like architecture. There is the typical forward facing gaze of students towards the space occupied by the professor or instructor. This space actually encourages feigned attentiveness - performative attention. Students are good at looking like they are paying attention. Even the best lecturer cannot unflaggingly hold everyone’s attention throughout a lecture. Every lecturer can, however, retain the appearance of the audience members’ total/full attention. But this appearance of attention is inadequate for real learning. Hence, we need to explore better the organic nature of in/attention and use it to our advantage.
Thus, educational content should be understood as intermittent and surrounded by a rich context of “special effects” used to choreograph attention. The classroom at best provides a context for learning. Could we bring students back in to this context by giving them some control over the way their attention is paid? This would inaugurate a new economy of attention. This new economy might just generate a “new stage.” Digital Spaces can be seen as a new stage. With Digital Spaces, students can share things like Twitter accounts during class and then can see and engage what their peers’ interests are. This may deepen their interest in the content of the class as well as in each other. It also would help to generate greater student investment in a community of co-learning.
Eric’s suggested Classroom Best Practices: Banquet-style seating; implement in-class back-channels (like Twitter) with an express purpose, but encourage other directed channels (such as web-browsing); have a separate display screen for back-channel explorations to provide learning context as well as some form of surveillance; allow classroom to be playful without becoming frivolous; no laptop in the classroom policies suppress attentional nuance; let go of need for performative attention from students.
Cultivating an awareness of the natural ebb and flow of students’ attention will allow instructors to better design excellent learning situations. Giving permission for students’ attention to “recede” into a back-channel seems to allow for more synthesizing moments in class. Introducing back-channels and giving up some level of control over student attention would herald a shift from the expectation that students be perfect repositories for passive information input to an expectation that they actively engage with class material according to a rhythm that is natural for them. Hence, the teaching and learning that take place are potentially more authentic.
Please click for access to Eric Gordon’s Talk <http://clc.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/yale_attention.ppsx>
