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Jenae Valvoda
English 467
Dr. Mara and Dr. Rupiper-Taggart
5 May 2014
Twitter: Significantly More Than Just 140 Characters in the
Classroom
Abstract
Social technologies have become so ingrained in our society that
they are almost as
necessary to have as an email address. In an age that measures
speed in megabits per second,
Twitter as a microblogging tool utilizes ones time efficiently
and effectively in relation to
knowledge delivered and received. This study is especially
concerned with Twitter in relation to
education as social medias presence in the classroom is still
taboo being that it has received
much negative press in relation to pitfalls of users common
sense. This paper will be using
evidentiary support to prove that, in relation to Lev Vygotskys
theory of The Zone of Proximal
Development, Twitter fits the needs of todays students and aids
them in success. Students are
already familiar with how social media works and a general idea
of how to use Twitter, but with
guidance can utilize it even more through use of classroom
hashtags and direct replies to
accomplish a multitude of tasks, prepare themselves for a
tech-savvy professional world, and
even overcome shyness in the classroom.
Introduction
Education reform has been on the lips of many politicians since
it became known that
the United States was lagging behind equally established
countries along with rising pressures
felt among students. Twitter could be a very useful element to
these two major problems the
country faces. Approaching its tenth year in service, Twitter is
a free social microblogging site
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with limitless potential for exchanging 140 character long bits
of information. Messages are
traceable with the @ symbol followed directly by a unique
username, organized by hashtags
and trending topics, able to be commented on, shared through
retweets, and they thrive off of
the element of real-time connectivity. The site has a strong
presence globally and is accessed
by upwards of 650,000,000 users (About Twitter). Due to this
large influence, presence on
the site is desirable in any form ranging from an average
individual user to a large corporation.
Pew Internet and American Life Project report that the fastest
growing group of users signing
up for new accounts are those between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-four, yet only two
percent of college professors, those educating this age group,
utilize the medium thought of as
email for web 2.0 (Kruger-Ross, Waters, and Farwell 120).
This lack of presence in education is understandable though
since professors fear it will
be a negative experience given the myriad of complications
mainstream media has brought to
light on social technologies. However, the problem with clinging
to academias old ways does
not encourage learners who are becoming future leaders to expand
their knowledge in an ever
demandingly technology oriented world.
The research questions are as follows:
Would Twitter be suitable for the classroom?
What impact do the users obtain that they would not
otherwise?
Is it possible to combine a public and private space while still
maintaining prestige?
What kinds of obstacles must the group tackle if this method is
to succeed?
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Through answers to these questions, one will be able to analyze
if the perceived fear is rational
or irrational and in what way to best address this approach.
Literature Review
Though many are nervous to even address the topic of combining
private social media
with a public learning environment, it has proven difficult to
find published evidentiary research
supporting those in opposition to the method; this is likely due
to the overall effectiveness and
excitement towards changing the norm. Though not right for all
classrooms, and needing to be
adapted on a case-by-case basis, social technology in the
classroom is very beneficial. In a
world where the average person is self-taught in social media
technique, the benefits for
students learning how to best utilize this style are endless
considering companies have been
joining the sphere for purposes of marketing; there are even
employees with job titles relating
to this area. However, in the book Hybrid Learning: The Perils
and Promises of Blending Online
and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education, Jason Snart
addresses that often times
employers spend large amounts of money training their employees
of varying titles in remedial
writing and communication skills (24). Though writing is
constantly happening across all age
groups on the internet, particularly of those poised in higher
education and newly entering the
job market age range, there is a disconnect of applicable form
in their communication skills.
Connecting this disjuncture could potentially help an entire
generation turn their skillset in a
new direction, not just through post-secondary education but by
those who have gone through
a hybrid program setting an example and others following a more
effective trend.
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One reason students may be holding back is that they may hold
some hesitation
towards reputation management when considering engaging
professionally online through
social media. This anxiety stems from many media portrayals of
the perils of personal
information falling into the wrong digital hands, enough to
scare anyone into a net of privacy
settings and desire to be more anonymous than named as
recognized by Doug Johnson in
Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age: An Ethics Guide
for Parents, Teachers, Librarians,
and Others Who Care about Computer-using Young People (65).
There have been countless
individuals in the public sphere to be publicly exposed after a
digital mishap; unfortunately,
they are only sometimes forgiven and mostly tied to shameful
infamy. Hence, anxiety over
sharing is a reality for those concerned with professional
image, however, it is a necessary step
that all students should be taking as the online sphere moves
toward less anonymity for benefit
of making real connections to enhance ones lifes experience
including things like jobs and
friends.
A method may be introduced in order to assist students to
situate specific
communicative exchange through social media as complex and
nuanced rather than neutral as
their self-taught use would have been (Hurley and Hea). Doing
this will realign their
perspective with ethics and also calm their nerves over what is
appropriate for their audiences
as the old adage goes, practice makes perfect. Also, even the
most professional person on
earth takes a break once in a while if they are concerned with
appearing as though they lack
effort; students and professionals should never be ashamed to
post harmless leisure activities
or something with personality. Including personality in ones
digital social sphere can actually
give the impression of looking more proficient because it
displays one has the common sense to
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know what is social speech and what is internal speech,
distinctions of types of speech made by
Lev Vygotsky as discussed later. Strictly posting professional
or self-promotion statuses can
make an individual appear as a spammer or robot and that is very
off-putting to others when
attempting to connect online since it is not relatable to the
human experience claims Bethany
Nowviskie of "Uninvited Guests: Twitter at Invitation-Only
Events" (128). She notes that with
experience, Twitter users specifically are more inclined to be
understanding and welcoming to a
variety of updates since time is never wasted in the 140
character limit unlike becoming
accidentally drawn into something lengthier anywhere else.
Educators noticed increased participation, writing skills,
discussion, and engagement
with decreased shyness after adopting twitter, as evidenced
later in the results section. Use of
the social aspect can help increase teacher credibility with
students as they can view and
process relatable content being published. This enables students
to be more open and willing
to learn from educators that are relevant, thus having a
positive effect on education as noted
by John McArthur and Kristen Bostedo-Conway in, Exploring The
Relationship Between
Student-Instructor Interaction On Twitter And Student
Perceptions Of Teacher Behaviors. This
role is also excellent mentorship, as it may be easier for some
learners to imitate someone they
know who is playing a similar rhetoric or speech role as
compared to observing someone they
are not familiar with that is not aware of the educational
outcomes or following learned
behaviors to a specific guidelines given in a lesson.
Peer-review is also becoming a popular thing among arts,
humanities, and social
sciences scholars. The authority of one or two readers could
never add up to a pool of readers
that social media presents for critique. The lightning speed
that social scientists can now collect
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data for these articles is unlike any other time and it is
astounding. This enables these social
scientists to construct and theorize at the rapid speed in which
communication is also being
had; thus fulfilling a need for immediacy and gratification in a
hurried world. Therefore, this is a
reason more professors should overcome their fears of using
Twitter, because it would benefit
the research being performed in their field, thus making their
field more prestigious. Scheinfelt
of "Theory, Method, and Digital Humanities," also supports the
notion that just because the old
method has been around for a very long time, does not mean that
it is getting the best job
done; though peer-review is a step away from preliminary
pedagogy, I think that both of these
articles represent forward thinking in the humanities. Sure,
ancient Greek philosophers also
questioned paper use as to oral lectures, but just because a
group pauses to question, it does
not mean that the masses will pause to do the same and one must
carry on, modifying it to
meet specific needs and connect.
Methods
Lev Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development as a piece of his
sociocognitive theories
works as a lens under which to analyze how Twitter can be used
in the classroom. In Bijan
Gillanis book, Learning Theories and the Design of E-learning
Environments, he explains
Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development states that the learner
expands their knowledge
through relation to what they already have in their bank of
knowledge and in combining that
with the proper environment of guidance can achieve anything to
an advanced level. In the
first stage, the individual is mostly an observer, just seeing
social speech as external and
computing it through internal speech, having a dialogue with
themselves; soon after they
combine these two, and the result is cognition of information on
how to perform the task
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themselves. Ability continues to grow through observation and
over time the novice will
become an expert, enabling an environment for observation to
develop and also carry the
potential to mold the existing setting.
Internalization of external social patterns is a the first key
step the individual must
complete; during this first stage, they are merely observing how
interactions take place and
then carefully breaking them down and computing a formula inside
their head or aloud but
noting how they may have also acted in the same situation. In
turn, the society being observed
may recognize that a novice is in their presence and the
potential for skewing normal
interaction may take place. Although this kind of reverting is
not always a bad thing,
sometimes the environment needs reminding of what model behavior
looks like so as to bring
in another model to the frame.
Next, language is the key role player in achieving the proximal
zone when the learner
acknowledges the difference in setting speech context says
Gillani. Typically the first language
to develop is egocentric and only concerned with solving
problems or needs of the individual.
Separation then occurs when they realize the difference between
what is a social problem and
what is an individual problem so that they may appropriately
express their egocentric speech in
this division. Awareness of audience and sorting of speech is
coined human cognition since
the learner is actively engaging a filter on their language and
the process becomes a relatively
subconscious one should the environment be a well-suited one for
learning. Vygotsky refers to
this as developing the buds or flowers of a plant into
fruit.
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Finally, Gillani says these factors translate into cognition in
the Zone of Proximal
development. He explains:
It is within this zone that by the use of internal tools such as
language, that social
characteristics, communication styles, personality, cognitive
ability, linguistic style, and
academic knowledge are transmitted from external social
activities into internal
psychological knowledge. It is also within this zone that if
proper instruction through
social mediation takes place, the [individual's] development
will shape (81).
The instruction is absolutely essential for cognition to take
place, and in order for the individual
to properly develop, they must be provided a proper example.
With these steps, a novice can
easily become an expert and in turn teach other novices.
Analysis
There is a strong connection between Vygotskys theoretical lens
of the Zone of
Proximal Development and the hypothetical or evidentiary way
Twitter functions in a
classroom. The main way an observer may be able to see this is
through the primary function
of tweeting. A user is able to send a slice of information that
is very time-effective to read
when the internet tends to be flooded with heaps of information
entirely irrelevant or
uninteresting to an individual. In this tweet a user is allowed
to attach a link, photo, or even
six-second Vine video, a new microvideo app introduced by
Twitter in 2013. The ability to
communicate in more ways than just words enhances the experience
for those who do better
with visual mediums or further explanation. Educators may use
tweets to make
announcements, ask content questions, or address other topics of
interest to peers or students
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(Soloman and Schrum 36). Direct replies using the @ symbol are
also beneficial exchanges
between users who may need a question answered or have had an
inspirational thought
pertaining to another users status; the conversation may be
viewed by all when expanded in
the main feed.
The process of expanding and adapting surroundings, such as in
Vygotskys theory even
took place within Twitter as they continued to grow as a site;
an experienced user proposed
that they use the pound symbol on a keyboard as a means to group
tweets and the infamous
hashtag was born. The hashtag concept was scrutinized at first,
insinuating that users would
not care to have such groupings to their messages but truly the
practical procedure was
embraced by users quickly (About Twitter). In this way we can
see that Twitters general
audience is also learning without a classroom, benefitting
everything from local to global
concerns. Hashtags are beneficial in the classroom to categorize
information or even identify
involved users with a unique, short tag directing one user via
search bar to those using the tag.
Hashtags also have the ability to sort out academic posts from
personal posts, saving users time
if they wish to only read select tweets of a user. Choosing
which information to view allows
users to shape their own environment as described through
Vygotskys notion of assisting the
learning through a setting.
Retweets, statuses that are able to be re-shared by another
user, in an academic setting
can be thought-provoking. Enabling one users thoughts to be
shared to another users
followers may inspire more following and connections to occur,
elicit more replies, and spread
the idea further for possible development. Similar to Vygotskys
theory, the likelihood of
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retweet occurs mostly when a user is an expert and knows how to
share a well-developed idea
with their audience, thus making an environment suited for
learning through example.
Results
In the reports including primary research, positive results were
quantitatively shown.
Yakin and Hasan - "Using Twitter as an Instructional Tool: A
Case Study in Higher Education"
A Turkish university had success implementing Twitter in a
variety of uses in a Computer
Applications and Social Sciences Course. As the reader can see,
positive correlations are
documented over the three phases of surveys. The users
experienced greater knowledge of the
variety of features and they feel more competent over time
because they generally use the
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medium at home where they feel most comfortable and is the
likely setting of their self-taught
social media use.
Cohen and Duchan "The Usage Characteristics Of Twitter In The
Learning Process"
A middle-school aged biology course in Istanbul analyzed how the
method was used in
their classroom. Through the graph, the reader may see that most
of the tweets pertained to
pedagogical usage and only a small percent were related to
technical usage. This indicates that
even at a younger age, users are familiar with how to use the
platform with little difficulty. The
word cloud, a web2.0 tool, was created after compiling the
students tweets and from this the
reader is able to distinguish the students most commonly used
words. Since it was a biology
course learning about digestion, eat seems appropriate to be the
largest word displayed.
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Kruger-Ross, Waters, and Farwell "Everyone's All A-Twitter About
Twitter: Three Operational
Perspectives on Using Twitter in the Classroom"
This case did not include graphs since it was not primary
research, but rather in-depth insights
to how Twitter was used in three perspectives: an Advertising
and Social Media course used
real time tweeting, an Education in Technology course dealing
with videography used regularly
scheduled live tweet chats and optional class related
discussions, and lastly the article focused
on an instructor perspective of a retired professor who had live
tweeted in several public
relations courses. All three of these perspectives noted
positive experiences for both students
and educators. With concern to privacy and the fear that comes
with it for many students, in
the Advertising and Social Media course, students were given an
opt out option. The
professor notes that connecting with their students in this
medium has brought better
relationships between themselves and the students since peering
into small aspects of their
private life make relating to the human experience of another
easier.
Discussion
The fears that many professors harbor of Twitter being a
possibly negative experience in
the classroom is irrational. Though not always suitable for
every classroom, real-time
communication in the modern classroom is essential for preparing
students for communicating
in the future. Twitter should be used in more classrooms due to
its strong relation to user
experience and connection to how Vygotsky theorizes cognition to
take place; this process will
lessen the current disjuncture occurring for many young
professionals lacking communication
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skills when entering the workplace. It is possible for both
faculty and students to maintain
image through setting appropriate rules that will lead to an
unconscious appropriate mindset,
thus enhancing ones ability to communicate effectively by
automatically adjusting formats of
speech. Maintaining prestige however, is not about becoming a
robot, but rather keeping
content relevant and seeing surroundings as those in a part of
the human experience and not
one of strict equations or rules to live by. Even if something
less than desirable happens, it can
be used as a learning lesson which is exactly what education is
defined as.
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Works Cited
"About Twitter." Twitter. N.p., 2014. Web. 01 May 2014. .
Cohen, Anat, and Galit, Duchan. "The Usage Characteristics Of
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Teacher Behaviors."
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