To Tweet in classroms?

Using social media is becoming common way of communicating, especially between young people. Because people seem to spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and similar media, some have developed a strong negative attitude towards these new tools for communication. Those new media are problematic especially in education institutions, because it seems like students' attention is not where it should be because the just can't get off Facebook or can't stop Tweeteing, even during the class lectures. So the simple solution is to prohibit using this tools when in schools and universities. But is this really the best solution? It sure isn't a very creative one.

Some teachers and professors decided to take a different kind of approach. I've examined videos on You Tube, which present some examples of using Twitter for educational purposes and found some interesting cases:

First see a short video about using social networking in the classroom: Introduction

Cases of using Twitter in class:


Minneapolis Roosevelt High School

University of Texas

La Crosse Middle School





The main and very obvious argument why to use social media in class is that students use these tools to communicate with each other outside a classroom- so why not use it in class, too? Because students are interested in new ways of communication, why not incorporate this in education process?

Here are the advantages of using Twitter in classroom, which were presented in the above videos:

Using Twitter in class:

• Catching the attention of the students
• Increasing their participation
• Enabling more people to discuss the material at the same time
• Enabling students to return to the discussions and read them again
• Enabling the shy-ones to speak up
• It gets students more incorporated into the class
• Enables everyone to express their opinion
• Encourages participation
• Enables student collaboration

Using Twitter outside class:

• Enables to notify students about assignments
• Enables easy communication between teachers and students outside classroom
• Enables publishing of class announcements
• Enables students to connect and follow experts from different fields
• Enables teachers to publish suggestions for books and literature
• Enables teachers to publish reports about student's work for their parents
• Enables teachers to connect with other teachers in their subject area and learn from each other

Of course there are some limitations of the tool, especially because it enables very limited space for communication, and sometimes discussions require more in-depth arguments. But on the other hand the limited space encourages students to be brief and focused in their communication. There are also some concerns about mixing student's and teacher's private Twitter accounts with professional tasks, but this can easily be solved by creating two different Twitter accounts.

I believe that teachers and professors should consider the benefits of using Twitter in classes instead of disapproving and forbidding them in advance. And if they can think of a proper use, they should take the step and try it. I'm sure that the students will appreciate it very much.