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The Twitter Experiment at UT Dallas

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Saved by 15 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-05-30


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I used twitter in the basic U.S. History II survey course at U.T. Dallas in the spring 2009 semester.

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I had one graduate student teaching assistant to help with grading and other administrative duties for the class.

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I wanted to find a way to incorporate more student-centered learning techniques and involve the students more fully into the material.

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Twitter users had the option of posting updates or comments either through the twitter website or by text messaging on a mobile phone.

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But nearly every student in the class had a mobile phone and used text messaging features regularly.

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The idea was to set up all of the students on twitter while they were in class and have them post discussion ideas/questions and respond to each other using twitter.

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First, I set up a twitter account for the class called ushistoryII. 

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Many of them had never heard of twitter and only a few were actually using twitter at the time, so this was new technology to them as well.

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Following Kim’s suggestion, I gave the students special hash tags to use on all of their comments.

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I loaded tweetdeck on the classroom computer and projected it onto the large screen at the front of the room so students could watch the stream of comments.

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This was an important aspect of our twitter experiment.  With 90 students in one room, I needed the TA’s participation to make this format work.  She was completely on board and energetic about trying new things and figuring out how to make twitter an effective classroom tool. 

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With our “best practices,” we found that twitter was most effective when it was combined with other discussion strategies (small group discussions, interaction with the instructor, and processing as an entire class.)  Twitter did not replace more conventional discussion formats; instead it enhanced the discussions and brought more student interaction.

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Since twitter is a public and open access internet technology, I made twitter participation optional for students. 

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here were also some students who either did not have the equipment (laptop computer) to use twitter in class or who did not have an unlimited texting plan on the cell phone.

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The TA would go through all of the comments after class and send a direct response to any tweets that needed to be addressed—including questions that remained unanswered or exceptional comments that warranted direct feedback.

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I suspect that this bothered me more than it bothered the students.  I tend to think and process information in a much more structural manner.  Most of the students (in their world of intense multi-tasking) seemed completely capable of following several streams of thought at one time.

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Overall, I think the twitter experiment was successful primarily because it encouraged students to engage who otherwise would not. 

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Even in smaller classes, only a small number of students actively participate in class discussions.

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