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Case studies of practice
Evaluaon of Twier’s potenal in Higher Educaon is beginning to be published and somedisnct uses have emerged exemplied by four case studies below.
Case study 1. Twier as broadcast medium (University of B
ath)
Dr Sabah Abdullah used Twier for an undergraduate module in Economics (Ramsden2009). Twier was used to supplement the recommended reading list with relevantnews items. A module-specic Twier account was created using the module code andinstrucons were provided to students on how to create their own Twier account, and onhow to follow the module account. Use of Twier was encouraged through references inlectures. Generally, Dr Abdullah posted the URL of relevant arcles via Twier.
Case study 2. Twier as conversaonal medium (University of Texas, Dallas)
Dr Monica Rankin used Twier as a means of encouraging greater student parcipaonin large-group classes. Her intenon was to “pull more students into a class discussionwhich [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 lile inmidang”(Kesmit3 2009). Hashtags – e.g. #h1302w08 – were used that included both a module codeas well as a reference to the week in which the discussion was taking place. This case studyillustrates the deployment of Twier as a conversaonal medium used to enable in-class(‘backchannels’) and well as post-lecture comments and reecons.
Case study 3. Twier for learning communies (University of Colorado, Denver)
Dunlap & Lowenthal (2009) have recently published an evaluaon of their use of Twier ona module on instruconal design and technology. The authors encouraged their studentsto use Twier in a variety of ways: to post quesons and queries to one another as well asto the course team, to send student-to-student direct messages, to tweet comments onrelevant news events, to share resources, to reports on conferences that were not aendedby some of their fellow students, to links to student blogs and to exchange personalinformaon (e.g. a student tweeng they’re red and o to bed which receives two replieswishing her a good night’s sleep). The authors claim that the use of Twier can enhancestudents’ percepon of a sense of ‘social presence’, an important quality that helpspromote student involvement, commitment and retenon. They conclude that Twier isgood for “sharing, collaboraon, brainstorming, problem solving, and creang within thecontext of our moment-to-moment experiences” (Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009).
connued...
Twitter in Higher Education
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