Language and Literacy of Twitter
140 Character Learning
When I initially heard about Twitter, a new social networking tool which was based around mobile phone text messages and used by a few thousand reporters around the world to share stories and break news, I was perplexed. I did not really understand it – why would so few people want to send such a short message about something as important as the news? A few years later, I heard about Twitter again, through the news.
They were talking about this “new” social media site taking the world by storm, and how one could eliminate all of the unnecessary things of Facebook, leaving just your status updates. Again, I was confused. Who did not want to snoop around their friends’ photographs from high school, or find out who was now dating whom? Finally, I heard about Twitter from TMZ, a popular conglomerate of paparazzi who tracked the rich and famous, apparently Snoop Dogg had a delicious burrito in Marina del Rey and had “tweeted” about it.
My anecdotal response to Twitter is similar to those I have heard of in the last years, and as recently as this week. When people find out I have an active Twitter account, they normally say something about its difficulty, then finish their sentence with whether or not they have an account, refuse to get an account, or with a statement of horror at how difficult the whole process seems (quite often the latter statement is linked to one of the two former statements).
Taking an educational perspective on Twitter, I began to see its relevance – I developed “new eyes” – and proceeded to create and frequently use my own account. I then made multiple other accounts which I held the passwords for, but which my students could interact with, and contribute to. The core issue with Twitter, it seems, is not that it is a new tool with which many students struggle, but that it is a tool that is underutilized because of the pedagogical struggle of teachers’ lack of understanding of its worth and
process. Twitter, which is used by many students, is a lens through which we see others’ language and literature. Many users think of it as their own global-reaching soapbox from which to speak and be heard, but it can also be used at a micro level by teachers to understand their students in a less formal environment than a physical classroom, and provides opportunity for teachers’ to assess students to find out what knowledge and skills they still need or want to obtain. Using Twitter to interact with students or as a means by which a classroom can interact with the world provides vast opportunity to personify history or geography, to be scholarly and to act as extrinsic motivation for students’ to engage.
The prospective benefits of Twitter as seen from a pedagogical, assessment or engagement viewpoint is endless, it just takes an understanding of the site to see the potential for accommodating these needs in classroom use of the site. Twitter is undervalued by many educators, and ignored by many more. The few who embrace it seem to see a worthwhile return on their investment of
time and energy from their students, whose own time and energy make for a lively timeline, with the complementary ability to assess student engagement and respond to the questions and thoughts of their students.
Dr. Micheal Ullyot, an assistant professor of English at University of Calgary who uses Twitter in academia has said, “take what for most people is a social network, and make it into an intellectual network”. (CBC News Broadcast, 2011). Dr. Ullyot has successfully addressed many of the misconceptions of Twitter, often propagated by educators, through his use adaptation of Twitter to suit his needs. Educators often believe Twitter is solely a social media network with poor grammar and spelling, where plagiarism
runs rampant as the flow of information becomes overwhelming to maintain a connection with. For these reasons, many educators find Twitter “not worth the effort” or “just too difficult to use”, failing to see how simple modifications, guidelines or procedure can eradicate these issues.
BBC News interviewed Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust about the use of technology by students. The research performed by the National Literacy Trust suggests that there is a “strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing (2009). Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing…”. The specific research undertaken by this organization suggests that the use of communication-specific technologies such as Twitter have the potential for increasing the capacity and frequency of student engagement in literacy.
As such, responsible literacy must be practiced. Twitter is not a one-sided conversation where the student is evaluated on the finished product of a purpose-produced work (as some traditional homework assignments often are), but is a dialogue that is created from a series of statements. With Twitter, anyone can post nearly anything.[1] However, students’ posts can be shared around the world through the click of a button, and thus replied to from a global audience of varying professions, cultures, and a myriad of other differences influencing perspectives.
Media literacy is often taught either as expressed or hidden curriculum in many schools through the examination of commercials and other forms of advertisement as well as media bias, and is generally about the identification of bias in language consumed by students. Twitter, however, can become the catalyst and medium for student examination personally perpetuated bias as students develop their own “new eyes” for critical literacy. For, as Belinha S. De Abreu positions, Twitter is a participatory culture in which students must have a conceptualization of the identity of a digital citizen; high school students are at the age where some will begin to struggle for autonomy and expression. Educators must acknowledge this, but take the opportunity for reinforcement and guidelines where possible, as the success of social media in the classroom and beyond lies in creating a safe space for engagement of students' ideas. (De Abreu, 2011, p. 64)
With Twitter, not only are educators expected to teach these objectives of media literacy and digital citizenship, but also are expected to know the nuances of the site’s mechanics and tools. Twitter can be impressively difficult to learn, and the tool itself with struggle with the content for the attention of the teacher and some students. Twitter contains its own language and literacy. Educators are often overwhelmed when they must read and understand the structure of the site and the content posted, which sometimes appears as a language the educator may not understand, despite its roots in English.
For younger or digitally connected educators, the reading and understanding of Twitter comes naturally. The flexibility of language and the ability to adapt to technological tools and layouts has been ingrained in our consciousness as we have grown alongside the development of these social media tools. For some older or simply less connected teachers the reading of Twitter is not difficult, as it is most often the English language being written in its whole form, or obviously shortened by still discernible English words. Many students will fall into the digitally connected or disconnected as well, dependent on their technological resources or social normative. For many, regardless of age or technological ability, role as a student or teacher, the understanding of Twitter needs to be facilitated.
The context of Twitter is difficult for those who do not keep abreast to online language modification. This is not the “text language” of single-letter word representations, or acronyms, but the common English language of the last century, repurposed for technological use, forming a new dialect of English.[2] As Paolo Freire stated, “changing language is part of the process of changing
the world”.(Fasset & Warren, 2007, p. 75) While the context of his statement was within that of critical pedagogy and social change, his words summarize the shift from the previous century’s pen-to-paper and advancements of common literacy in western society, to a technologically literate global village. Words such as “tweet” or “mention” still carry their conventional definitions, but now have a parallel technological communication meaning. In a 1998 Collins Dictionary, prior to the era of social networking (aside from chat rooms) “mention”meant “refer to briefly”. (Collins Pocket Reference English Dictionary, 1998, p. 263) Now, in the age of social networking, the informal definition of “mention” is a blend of reference and a specific process of citation and alert through the “@” symbol. Perhaps more strikingly, the definition of “tweet” has now been changed from solely “chirp”in 1998, to Merriam-Webster’s 2011 definition which also includes “a post made on the Twitter online message service”. (Merriam Webster Dictionary Database, entry: “tweet”)
Certainly a bird’s chirp must mean something else to other birds. Calls for distress, an alert to a food source, or perhaps a piece of conversation human ears are unable to comprehend. Similarly, a human’s tweet must be concise in its brevity. The 140 character limit is inflexible, and begs for selective word choice for maximum effect. That effect can also include longevity – Twitter is like a mosaic of pottery shards – as there is a history of what users have chosen to speak about, in their own words, collected and preserved to form a larger picture of public expression, literacy, and language.[3]
Using Twitter in the classrooms allows students to not only become media literate and good digital citizens, but it also allows them to review their own contributions to the user-generated media and digital archives of the 21st century. In a History context, how will your archived tweets reflect upon gender and social status of your time? In a Geography context, how do your tweets reflect the current world geo-political, cultural or environmental issues, and what does your idea of “importance”include or exclude purposefully and unintentionally? Furthermore, how do your tweets, re-tweeted or the quotes of your simple but thoughtful 140 characters create a reflexive dialogue? This reflection and reflexive process allows for both that mirroring of the past and the “important motion of back and forth, between one’s actions and how those implicate one in social phenomena”, respectively. (Fasset & Warren, p. 48)
This reflexive and reflective process of Twitter in the classroom will not be immediately recognized by a student, and most teachers would not think long enough about such a simple tool as Twitter to come to the conclusion that it is a way to engage the higher orders of Bloom’s Taxonomy in a way that is relevant and interesting to students. However those educators who do, may b rewarded with students who engage in their lessons and subject matter, more than they might have should the delivery and assessment been in a more traditional format. Those educators who embrace social media as an intellectual forum may be treated to students’engagement becoming more obvious.
A common belief about Twitter is that it is solely “pointless babble”, and yes, during a random sample of accounts there was an overwhelming amount of information passed along that was irrelevant to many users. (Pear Analytics, 2009) However, by following and being followed by tweet-producing accounts with relevance to a subject, a teacher can cut down the amount of “babble” and begin to obtain useful, cited and appropriate material, and allow students’ to share their work with those characteristics.
Collective intelligence, a process identified by Pierre Levy allows students to become users who exploit the potential of networked communication, while contributing as well. As Levy states, a world of individuals embracing commonalities, accessing information and processing what they have learned has been created online, where “everyone knows something, nobody knows everything, and what any one person knows can be tapped by the group as a whole”. (Jenkins, 2009, p. 71-2) Twitter is one of those online environments where students are able to enter a place where they become one of the people who knows something, is not expected to know everything, and can become appreciated by the group as a whole. This extrinsic motivation to contribute to the greater discourse on a particular subject is not enough to have every student engage, however it may reach a fair amount of students who feel tweeting allows expression and literacy they are comfortable with.
Collective Intelligence also seeks to answer the misconception that Twitter is rife with plagiarism and stolen ideas. Yes, many people re-tweet others’ ideas and statements without proper citation, but the chronological timelines and search button yield nearly
instantaneous results as to who said it first. Proper and regular use of Twitter carries its own etiquette by which plagiarism and thought-theft is combatted. The “@” mention is often used when signifying where a “re-tweet” has come from. For instance, if JohnSmith007 had originally posted “George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big House to be constructed”, and JaneRogers98765 wished to share the information, she could easily quote (place quotations around) or re-tweet (write “RT” in front of the statement) with the mention of who originally posted it, as such:
RT @JohnSmith007: George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big
House to be constructed.
or
“George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big House to be
constructed.” @JohnSmith007
Both ways of citation are appropriate, and more often used than not. However, students may still re-tweet without proper citation. In this case, and in any case of resources from outside Twitter being brought in as a students’ own thought, it is the educator’s due diligence, as usual, to find and correct plagiarism.
The English professor at the University of Calgary, Dr. Ullyot, has students who are aware of the need for being concise, whether it is answering specific questions he poses, asking their own questions or expressing their reaction to what they see and how they feel. The ability to tweet with the knowledge there is no specific answer key by which an educator can grade them allows students to use Twitter as a lens by which they interact with each other, subject matter, and the world around themselves. There is a connection with the site because the terrain is familiar – many students either use Twitter, Facebook or an alternate social networking site. Even more students have access to or regularly use a text messaging device such as a cellular or smartphone for 140 character communications. The ability to be concise is ingrained in this social communication, and is transferred to an educational communication.
Dr. Ullyot’s use of Twitter in a course on Shakespeare’s literature can become a case study in the controlled, proper use of social networking in academics. His students have posted pictures of their texts as they read, posted additional tweets with relevance to the class, and have begun to engage in work not required by the syllabus, a clear sign of interest. His ability to communicate with students, answer questions and respond to something as simple as a picture has allowed a connection to not only the literature, but also the students, that many educators do not have the luxury of maintaining. Students who stumble upon a related topic or interesting idea about a course subject may forget about it before the next class, or not wish to expend the effort to bring the resource to attention in person, in front of their peers. However with Twitter, it can be posted as a tweet with a link to the original
resource (if digital) or photographed and posted (if physical), or tweeted within seconds (if a thought or verbal communication). These small contributions become teachable moments, such as Dr. Ullyot’s student who posted a picture of her annotated textbook, creating a segue into proper research annotations.
It is not always the student who creates the teachable moment, when tweets are involved. The re-tweet, quotation and timelines of Twitter are erratic, spontaneous and unpredictable – they create nearly as many teachable moments as the students – allowing for exploration and inquiry, or in a Social Studies area, the ability to put into practice the benchmarks of historical thinking. In my last practicum, we used Twitter as a way to share the class’ newfound knowledge, and allow for ideas to be processed, shared, and built upon in a Social Studies context. Our unit was on government, and my students began to create tweets about important government issues to them. One morning, I arrived to class to find five of my students attempting to pull Twitter up on the classroom computer and projector – the buzz in the air was that a Canadian Senator had replied to a tweet – and everyone was eyes up. These students had
found the Senator’s mention of our class in a tweet the evening before… when they did not have any Twitter homework, or necessity to be on the site. Rather, they were on Twitter for personal use and happened across the mention, and began to engage in the subject matter when it began to become personally relevant that they know the Senator’s role and importance to government was. My same students began to bring articles from the newspaper to class, asking me to re-tweet them, or allow them to create class tweets about them. My small effort to engage my students by using a medium they were comfortable with and used regularly allowed them to communicate their messages with ease.
I used Twitter as a class, and because of classroom and computer requirements we shared one profile, for which only I had the password. Students would create concept frame sheets with questions, pictures, important vocabulary, personal opinions and finally a tweet following the 140 character limits of Twitter but allowing them to draw from any of those other categories. Should they wish to publish their picture as a TwitPic, I would do so, accompanied by a few words about its representation. They were able to post questions to the Twitterverse, or simply state that they had learned what the Senate was, with a personal opinion on its relevance. Other teachers use Twitter differently, and to great advantage.
While I used my Twitter accounts in Social Studies, a colleague of mine adapted my work to use in an English Language Arts setting. While he has not yet put the lesson to test with students, he has developed a plan by which students can tweet as personified objects, places, or people in various contexts and times. What my colleague is providing, seems to be an opportunity for students to engage with the subject matter from a first-person standpoint, but from behind the safety of a persona which blends their own values and judgements but allows experimentation with other ideas with the safety net that it is not their “own”personality. The safety of this communication by Twitter as an alternate identity fits well into Anne Haas Dyson’s Writing Superheroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture and Classroom Literacy which extends analysis of literacy and performance to the use of dramatizations in teaching and personification which allows students to reflect more deeply about the experiences of their subjects.(Jenkins, p. 49) Using Twitter as the outlet for the dramatizations allows for students to communicate not just in verbal literacy and language, but in an arena where they can shroud themselves in their personality while also taking the time to ponder their literacy and
language choices for best effect.
Despite its limits, 140 characters can produce incredibly insightful posts which can be assessed as, of and for learning. When students begin to bring in resources, re-tweet or mention things in the classroom account, it gives the educator a chance to learn about the students’ process, interests and personality. Furthermore, these voluntary and the required submissions can be used for assessment of the skills and knowledge objectives your students need to continue in their successes. In an experimental English class adapted to “Media/Communication”,educators saw great dividends of assessing students on work related to the required subject matter, done in a medium which interested them. Teachers in this program report that the students’ creation of a connection between what they are learning in class to their personal lives is allowing the teachers who evaluate their work to determine what skills, knowledge and attitudes are needed, as well as facilitate the ownership of curriculum material by the students.
The ability to connect with students, create a personal ownership for the students of their subject matter, allow for safe discovery and inquiry of the curriculum in ways that relate to their daily lives can be made possible through a variety of avenues. However, Twitter is the tool by which I find I am able to bridge my interest, knowledge and abilities to the requirements of pedagogy.
I have linked my pedagogical views and abilities with Twitter through this curricular resource. This website aims to educate educators about Twitter’s mechanics, and provide examples of successful use of this particular social network. This website also provides more elaborate research-based and experience-based professional development regarding Twitter. It is free, easily navigable and open-access. It is meant to be a teachers’ resource, a place for frequently updated and maintained information regarding the use of Twitter, in classrooms. This learning initiative takes the form of a website which does have a space for a blog, the first entry being this particular essay.
The focus of this website is on my content instruction area of the social sciences: history, geography, world issues and native studies amongst other classes found in secondary schools. However, bridges will be made through subsequent posts regarding the adaptations and new invitations to curriculum application across the arts. I have personally experimented with using Twitter in a classroom setting, with definite successes and less-than-phenomenal results. I have begun to develop my own reaction to and process of interaction with Twitter, which is far removed from my initial blasé level of interest. I hope you will share my passion about, connection to and belief in the use of the social network Twitter in your classroom, with much success.
References
Burn, A. (2009). Making new media: Creative production and digital literacies. New York: Peter Lang.
De Abreu, B. (2011). Media literacy, social networking, and the web 2.0 environment for the K-12 educator. New York, Peter
Lang.
Fasset, D.L., Warren, J.T. (2007). Critical communication pedagogy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Hobbs, R. (2007). Reading the media: Media literacy in high school English. New York: Teachers College Press.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., Robison, A.J. (2009). Confronting the challenge of participatory culture: Media
education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kleinman, Z. (2009 December 3). Children who use technology are ‘better writers’. BBC News. Retrieved from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8392653.stm
Pear Analytics. (2009). Twitter Study[Data file]. Retrieved from
http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf
Shakespeare via Twitter (Clip Title). (2011, September 28). Calgary Eye Opener [Television broadcast]. Calgary,
AB: CTV. Retrieved from
http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/episode/2011/09/26/shakespeare-via-twitter/
Tweet. (1998). In Collins pocket English dictionary: Canadian edition. Toronto: Harper Collins Publishers.
Tweet. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster Dictionary online. Retrieved from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tweet
[1] There are methods for reporting abusive or derogatory remarks made by users, which can
in some cases result in the removal of the offensive
material.
[2] It is recommended that students be reminded of context when using Twitter, to prevent the use of single-letter
words or acronyms.
[3] Twitter has donated its entire archive of tweets since its inception in 2006, onward indefinitely, to the United States
Library of Congress.
When I initially heard about Twitter, a new social networking tool which was based around mobile phone text messages and used by a few thousand reporters around the world to share stories and break news, I was perplexed. I did not really understand it – why would so few people want to send such a short message about something as important as the news? A few years later, I heard about Twitter again, through the news.
They were talking about this “new” social media site taking the world by storm, and how one could eliminate all of the unnecessary things of Facebook, leaving just your status updates. Again, I was confused. Who did not want to snoop around their friends’ photographs from high school, or find out who was now dating whom? Finally, I heard about Twitter from TMZ, a popular conglomerate of paparazzi who tracked the rich and famous, apparently Snoop Dogg had a delicious burrito in Marina del Rey and had “tweeted” about it.
My anecdotal response to Twitter is similar to those I have heard of in the last years, and as recently as this week. When people find out I have an active Twitter account, they normally say something about its difficulty, then finish their sentence with whether or not they have an account, refuse to get an account, or with a statement of horror at how difficult the whole process seems (quite often the latter statement is linked to one of the two former statements).
Taking an educational perspective on Twitter, I began to see its relevance – I developed “new eyes” – and proceeded to create and frequently use my own account. I then made multiple other accounts which I held the passwords for, but which my students could interact with, and contribute to. The core issue with Twitter, it seems, is not that it is a new tool with which many students struggle, but that it is a tool that is underutilized because of the pedagogical struggle of teachers’ lack of understanding of its worth and
process. Twitter, which is used by many students, is a lens through which we see others’ language and literature. Many users think of it as their own global-reaching soapbox from which to speak and be heard, but it can also be used at a micro level by teachers to understand their students in a less formal environment than a physical classroom, and provides opportunity for teachers’ to assess students to find out what knowledge and skills they still need or want to obtain. Using Twitter to interact with students or as a means by which a classroom can interact with the world provides vast opportunity to personify history or geography, to be scholarly and to act as extrinsic motivation for students’ to engage.
The prospective benefits of Twitter as seen from a pedagogical, assessment or engagement viewpoint is endless, it just takes an understanding of the site to see the potential for accommodating these needs in classroom use of the site. Twitter is undervalued by many educators, and ignored by many more. The few who embrace it seem to see a worthwhile return on their investment of
time and energy from their students, whose own time and energy make for a lively timeline, with the complementary ability to assess student engagement and respond to the questions and thoughts of their students.
Dr. Micheal Ullyot, an assistant professor of English at University of Calgary who uses Twitter in academia has said, “take what for most people is a social network, and make it into an intellectual network”. (CBC News Broadcast, 2011). Dr. Ullyot has successfully addressed many of the misconceptions of Twitter, often propagated by educators, through his use adaptation of Twitter to suit his needs. Educators often believe Twitter is solely a social media network with poor grammar and spelling, where plagiarism
runs rampant as the flow of information becomes overwhelming to maintain a connection with. For these reasons, many educators find Twitter “not worth the effort” or “just too difficult to use”, failing to see how simple modifications, guidelines or procedure can eradicate these issues.
BBC News interviewed Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust about the use of technology by students. The research performed by the National Literacy Trust suggests that there is a “strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing (2009). Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing…”. The specific research undertaken by this organization suggests that the use of communication-specific technologies such as Twitter have the potential for increasing the capacity and frequency of student engagement in literacy.
As such, responsible literacy must be practiced. Twitter is not a one-sided conversation where the student is evaluated on the finished product of a purpose-produced work (as some traditional homework assignments often are), but is a dialogue that is created from a series of statements. With Twitter, anyone can post nearly anything.[1] However, students’ posts can be shared around the world through the click of a button, and thus replied to from a global audience of varying professions, cultures, and a myriad of other differences influencing perspectives.
Media literacy is often taught either as expressed or hidden curriculum in many schools through the examination of commercials and other forms of advertisement as well as media bias, and is generally about the identification of bias in language consumed by students. Twitter, however, can become the catalyst and medium for student examination personally perpetuated bias as students develop their own “new eyes” for critical literacy. For, as Belinha S. De Abreu positions, Twitter is a participatory culture in which students must have a conceptualization of the identity of a digital citizen; high school students are at the age where some will begin to struggle for autonomy and expression. Educators must acknowledge this, but take the opportunity for reinforcement and guidelines where possible, as the success of social media in the classroom and beyond lies in creating a safe space for engagement of students' ideas. (De Abreu, 2011, p. 64)
With Twitter, not only are educators expected to teach these objectives of media literacy and digital citizenship, but also are expected to know the nuances of the site’s mechanics and tools. Twitter can be impressively difficult to learn, and the tool itself with struggle with the content for the attention of the teacher and some students. Twitter contains its own language and literacy. Educators are often overwhelmed when they must read and understand the structure of the site and the content posted, which sometimes appears as a language the educator may not understand, despite its roots in English.
For younger or digitally connected educators, the reading and understanding of Twitter comes naturally. The flexibility of language and the ability to adapt to technological tools and layouts has been ingrained in our consciousness as we have grown alongside the development of these social media tools. For some older or simply less connected teachers the reading of Twitter is not difficult, as it is most often the English language being written in its whole form, or obviously shortened by still discernible English words. Many students will fall into the digitally connected or disconnected as well, dependent on their technological resources or social normative. For many, regardless of age or technological ability, role as a student or teacher, the understanding of Twitter needs to be facilitated.
The context of Twitter is difficult for those who do not keep abreast to online language modification. This is not the “text language” of single-letter word representations, or acronyms, but the common English language of the last century, repurposed for technological use, forming a new dialect of English.[2] As Paolo Freire stated, “changing language is part of the process of changing
the world”.(Fasset & Warren, 2007, p. 75) While the context of his statement was within that of critical pedagogy and social change, his words summarize the shift from the previous century’s pen-to-paper and advancements of common literacy in western society, to a technologically literate global village. Words such as “tweet” or “mention” still carry their conventional definitions, but now have a parallel technological communication meaning. In a 1998 Collins Dictionary, prior to the era of social networking (aside from chat rooms) “mention”meant “refer to briefly”. (Collins Pocket Reference English Dictionary, 1998, p. 263) Now, in the age of social networking, the informal definition of “mention” is a blend of reference and a specific process of citation and alert through the “@” symbol. Perhaps more strikingly, the definition of “tweet” has now been changed from solely “chirp”in 1998, to Merriam-Webster’s 2011 definition which also includes “a post made on the Twitter online message service”. (Merriam Webster Dictionary Database, entry: “tweet”)
Certainly a bird’s chirp must mean something else to other birds. Calls for distress, an alert to a food source, or perhaps a piece of conversation human ears are unable to comprehend. Similarly, a human’s tweet must be concise in its brevity. The 140 character limit is inflexible, and begs for selective word choice for maximum effect. That effect can also include longevity – Twitter is like a mosaic of pottery shards – as there is a history of what users have chosen to speak about, in their own words, collected and preserved to form a larger picture of public expression, literacy, and language.[3]
Using Twitter in the classrooms allows students to not only become media literate and good digital citizens, but it also allows them to review their own contributions to the user-generated media and digital archives of the 21st century. In a History context, how will your archived tweets reflect upon gender and social status of your time? In a Geography context, how do your tweets reflect the current world geo-political, cultural or environmental issues, and what does your idea of “importance”include or exclude purposefully and unintentionally? Furthermore, how do your tweets, re-tweeted or the quotes of your simple but thoughtful 140 characters create a reflexive dialogue? This reflection and reflexive process allows for both that mirroring of the past and the “important motion of back and forth, between one’s actions and how those implicate one in social phenomena”, respectively. (Fasset & Warren, p. 48)
This reflexive and reflective process of Twitter in the classroom will not be immediately recognized by a student, and most teachers would not think long enough about such a simple tool as Twitter to come to the conclusion that it is a way to engage the higher orders of Bloom’s Taxonomy in a way that is relevant and interesting to students. However those educators who do, may b rewarded with students who engage in their lessons and subject matter, more than they might have should the delivery and assessment been in a more traditional format. Those educators who embrace social media as an intellectual forum may be treated to students’engagement becoming more obvious.
A common belief about Twitter is that it is solely “pointless babble”, and yes, during a random sample of accounts there was an overwhelming amount of information passed along that was irrelevant to many users. (Pear Analytics, 2009) However, by following and being followed by tweet-producing accounts with relevance to a subject, a teacher can cut down the amount of “babble” and begin to obtain useful, cited and appropriate material, and allow students’ to share their work with those characteristics.
Collective intelligence, a process identified by Pierre Levy allows students to become users who exploit the potential of networked communication, while contributing as well. As Levy states, a world of individuals embracing commonalities, accessing information and processing what they have learned has been created online, where “everyone knows something, nobody knows everything, and what any one person knows can be tapped by the group as a whole”. (Jenkins, 2009, p. 71-2) Twitter is one of those online environments where students are able to enter a place where they become one of the people who knows something, is not expected to know everything, and can become appreciated by the group as a whole. This extrinsic motivation to contribute to the greater discourse on a particular subject is not enough to have every student engage, however it may reach a fair amount of students who feel tweeting allows expression and literacy they are comfortable with.
Collective Intelligence also seeks to answer the misconception that Twitter is rife with plagiarism and stolen ideas. Yes, many people re-tweet others’ ideas and statements without proper citation, but the chronological timelines and search button yield nearly
instantaneous results as to who said it first. Proper and regular use of Twitter carries its own etiquette by which plagiarism and thought-theft is combatted. The “@” mention is often used when signifying where a “re-tweet” has come from. For instance, if JohnSmith007 had originally posted “George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big House to be constructed”, and JaneRogers98765 wished to share the information, she could easily quote (place quotations around) or re-tweet (write “RT” in front of the statement) with the mention of who originally posted it, as such:
RT @JohnSmith007: George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big
House to be constructed.
or
“George Simpson was the Governor who ordered the Big House to be
constructed.” @JohnSmith007
Both ways of citation are appropriate, and more often used than not. However, students may still re-tweet without proper citation. In this case, and in any case of resources from outside Twitter being brought in as a students’ own thought, it is the educator’s due diligence, as usual, to find and correct plagiarism.
The English professor at the University of Calgary, Dr. Ullyot, has students who are aware of the need for being concise, whether it is answering specific questions he poses, asking their own questions or expressing their reaction to what they see and how they feel. The ability to tweet with the knowledge there is no specific answer key by which an educator can grade them allows students to use Twitter as a lens by which they interact with each other, subject matter, and the world around themselves. There is a connection with the site because the terrain is familiar – many students either use Twitter, Facebook or an alternate social networking site. Even more students have access to or regularly use a text messaging device such as a cellular or smartphone for 140 character communications. The ability to be concise is ingrained in this social communication, and is transferred to an educational communication.
Dr. Ullyot’s use of Twitter in a course on Shakespeare’s literature can become a case study in the controlled, proper use of social networking in academics. His students have posted pictures of their texts as they read, posted additional tweets with relevance to the class, and have begun to engage in work not required by the syllabus, a clear sign of interest. His ability to communicate with students, answer questions and respond to something as simple as a picture has allowed a connection to not only the literature, but also the students, that many educators do not have the luxury of maintaining. Students who stumble upon a related topic or interesting idea about a course subject may forget about it before the next class, or not wish to expend the effort to bring the resource to attention in person, in front of their peers. However with Twitter, it can be posted as a tweet with a link to the original
resource (if digital) or photographed and posted (if physical), or tweeted within seconds (if a thought or verbal communication). These small contributions become teachable moments, such as Dr. Ullyot’s student who posted a picture of her annotated textbook, creating a segue into proper research annotations.
It is not always the student who creates the teachable moment, when tweets are involved. The re-tweet, quotation and timelines of Twitter are erratic, spontaneous and unpredictable – they create nearly as many teachable moments as the students – allowing for exploration and inquiry, or in a Social Studies area, the ability to put into practice the benchmarks of historical thinking. In my last practicum, we used Twitter as a way to share the class’ newfound knowledge, and allow for ideas to be processed, shared, and built upon in a Social Studies context. Our unit was on government, and my students began to create tweets about important government issues to them. One morning, I arrived to class to find five of my students attempting to pull Twitter up on the classroom computer and projector – the buzz in the air was that a Canadian Senator had replied to a tweet – and everyone was eyes up. These students had
found the Senator’s mention of our class in a tweet the evening before… when they did not have any Twitter homework, or necessity to be on the site. Rather, they were on Twitter for personal use and happened across the mention, and began to engage in the subject matter when it began to become personally relevant that they know the Senator’s role and importance to government was. My same students began to bring articles from the newspaper to class, asking me to re-tweet them, or allow them to create class tweets about them. My small effort to engage my students by using a medium they were comfortable with and used regularly allowed them to communicate their messages with ease.
I used Twitter as a class, and because of classroom and computer requirements we shared one profile, for which only I had the password. Students would create concept frame sheets with questions, pictures, important vocabulary, personal opinions and finally a tweet following the 140 character limits of Twitter but allowing them to draw from any of those other categories. Should they wish to publish their picture as a TwitPic, I would do so, accompanied by a few words about its representation. They were able to post questions to the Twitterverse, or simply state that they had learned what the Senate was, with a personal opinion on its relevance. Other teachers use Twitter differently, and to great advantage.
While I used my Twitter accounts in Social Studies, a colleague of mine adapted my work to use in an English Language Arts setting. While he has not yet put the lesson to test with students, he has developed a plan by which students can tweet as personified objects, places, or people in various contexts and times. What my colleague is providing, seems to be an opportunity for students to engage with the subject matter from a first-person standpoint, but from behind the safety of a persona which blends their own values and judgements but allows experimentation with other ideas with the safety net that it is not their “own”personality. The safety of this communication by Twitter as an alternate identity fits well into Anne Haas Dyson’s Writing Superheroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture and Classroom Literacy which extends analysis of literacy and performance to the use of dramatizations in teaching and personification which allows students to reflect more deeply about the experiences of their subjects.(Jenkins, p. 49) Using Twitter as the outlet for the dramatizations allows for students to communicate not just in verbal literacy and language, but in an arena where they can shroud themselves in their personality while also taking the time to ponder their literacy and
language choices for best effect.
Despite its limits, 140 characters can produce incredibly insightful posts which can be assessed as, of and for learning. When students begin to bring in resources, re-tweet or mention things in the classroom account, it gives the educator a chance to learn about the students’ process, interests and personality. Furthermore, these voluntary and the required submissions can be used for assessment of the skills and knowledge objectives your students need to continue in their successes. In an experimental English class adapted to “Media/Communication”,educators saw great dividends of assessing students on work related to the required subject matter, done in a medium which interested them. Teachers in this program report that the students’ creation of a connection between what they are learning in class to their personal lives is allowing the teachers who evaluate their work to determine what skills, knowledge and attitudes are needed, as well as facilitate the ownership of curriculum material by the students.
The ability to connect with students, create a personal ownership for the students of their subject matter, allow for safe discovery and inquiry of the curriculum in ways that relate to their daily lives can be made possible through a variety of avenues. However, Twitter is the tool by which I find I am able to bridge my interest, knowledge and abilities to the requirements of pedagogy.
I have linked my pedagogical views and abilities with Twitter through this curricular resource. This website aims to educate educators about Twitter’s mechanics, and provide examples of successful use of this particular social network. This website also provides more elaborate research-based and experience-based professional development regarding Twitter. It is free, easily navigable and open-access. It is meant to be a teachers’ resource, a place for frequently updated and maintained information regarding the use of Twitter, in classrooms. This learning initiative takes the form of a website which does have a space for a blog, the first entry being this particular essay.
The focus of this website is on my content instruction area of the social sciences: history, geography, world issues and native studies amongst other classes found in secondary schools. However, bridges will be made through subsequent posts regarding the adaptations and new invitations to curriculum application across the arts. I have personally experimented with using Twitter in a classroom setting, with definite successes and less-than-phenomenal results. I have begun to develop my own reaction to and process of interaction with Twitter, which is far removed from my initial blasé level of interest. I hope you will share my passion about, connection to and belief in the use of the social network Twitter in your classroom, with much success.
References
Burn, A. (2009). Making new media: Creative production and digital literacies. New York: Peter Lang.
De Abreu, B. (2011). Media literacy, social networking, and the web 2.0 environment for the K-12 educator. New York, Peter
Lang.
Fasset, D.L., Warren, J.T. (2007). Critical communication pedagogy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Hobbs, R. (2007). Reading the media: Media literacy in high school English. New York: Teachers College Press.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., Robison, A.J. (2009). Confronting the challenge of participatory culture: Media
education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kleinman, Z. (2009 December 3). Children who use technology are ‘better writers’. BBC News. Retrieved from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8392653.stm
Pear Analytics. (2009). Twitter Study[Data file]. Retrieved from
http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf
Shakespeare via Twitter (Clip Title). (2011, September 28). Calgary Eye Opener [Television broadcast]. Calgary,
AB: CTV. Retrieved from
http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/episode/2011/09/26/shakespeare-via-twitter/
Tweet. (1998). In Collins pocket English dictionary: Canadian edition. Toronto: Harper Collins Publishers.
Tweet. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster Dictionary online. Retrieved from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tweet
[1] There are methods for reporting abusive or derogatory remarks made by users, which can
in some cases result in the removal of the offensive
material.
[2] It is recommended that students be reminded of context when using Twitter, to prevent the use of single-letter
words or acronyms.
[3] Twitter has donated its entire archive of tweets since its inception in 2006, onward indefinitely, to the United States
Library of Congress.