Teaching with Twitter: From tweeting to learning
Steve Wheeler, Tara Alexander
University of Plymouth, United Kingdom
Over the past year the micro blogging tool Twitter has enjoyed an exponential rise in use and popularity, prompting many teachers and academics to experiment with its potential pedagogical applications. Twitter has the potential to be a powerful tool within formal education and training contexts if used appropriately. This workshop is aimed at those new or novice users who wish to investigate Twitter as a tool for enhancing and extending the learning experiences of their students.Through a sequence of games, demonstrations and interactive activities, participants will discuss some of the pedagogical principles that can be applied to micro-blogs. We will also explore a number of Twitter related tools such as Tweetdeck, Twittergrader, Twhirl and Twemes and assess their potential. During the workshop, for example, Twitter will be used as a backchannel tool to summarize and capture what is said and done, and we will apply a hashtag to tweets, and the delicious tagging of blog posts, recorded images and audio, thereby aggregating a live digital repository of the event on Twemes.The workshop will cover:• setting up and maintaining a Twitter account• evaluating existing uses of Twitter in teaching and learning• exploring and generating new ideas for using Twitter in teaching and learning• incorporating Twitter into blogs and other online servicesWe will also offer delegates case studies in using Twitter with our own students, and will provide insight into the benefits and limitations experienced.By the end of the workshop participants will have:• created a Twitter account (if they do not already have one) and will be encouraged to ‘follow’ other workshop delegates to create a small community of interest• gained an appreciation of some of the pedagogical uses of Twitter• discussed and shared best teaching practices using Twitter• started to evaluate the potential of Twitter as it might be applied in their own professional context• begun to consider new teaching uses for Twitter and associated toolsno references included