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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 Twitter In The Learning Process."

Interdisciplinary Journal Of E-Learning & Learning Objects 8. (2012): 149-163. Education

Source. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

Gillani, Bijan B. Learning Theories and the Design of E-learning Environments. Lanham, MD: U of

America, 2003. Print.

Hurley, Elise Verzosa, and Amy C. Kimme Hea. "The Rhetoric of Reach: Preparing Students for

Technical Communication in the Age of Social Media." Technical Communication

Quarterly 23.1 (2014): 55-68. Print.

Johnson, Doug. Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age: An Ethics Guide for Parents,

Teachers, Librarians, and Others Who Care about Computer-using Young People.

Worthington, OH: Linworth Pub., 2003. Print.

Kruger-Ross, Matthew, Richard Waters, and Tricia Farwell. "Everyone's All A-Twitter About

Twitter: Three Operational Perspectives on Using Twitter in the Classroom." Using Social

Media Effectively in the Classroom. Ed. Kay Seo. New York: Routledge, 2013. 117-31.

Print.

McArthur, John A., and Kristen Bostedo-Conway. "Exploring The Relationship Between Student-

Instructor Interaction On Twitter And Student Perceptions Of Teacher Behaviors."

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International Journal Of Teaching & Learning In Higher Education 24.3 (2012): 286-

292.Education Source. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

Nowviskie, Bethany. "Uninvited Guests: Twitter at Invitation-Only Events." Hacking the

Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities. Ed.

Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt. N.p.: U of Michigan, 2013. Print.

Scheinfelt, Tom. "Theory, Method, and Digital Humanities." Hacking the Academy: New

Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities. Ed. Daniel J. Cohen

and Tom Scheinfeldt. N.p.: U of Michigan, 2013. Print.

Solomon, Gwen, and Lynne Schrum. Web 2.0 How-to for Educators. Eugene, OR: International

Society for Technology in Education, 2010. Print.

Snart, Jason Allen. Hybrid Learning: The Perils and Promise of Blending Online and Face-to-Face

Instruction in Higher Education. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010. Print.

Yakin, Ilker, and Hasan, Tinmaz. "Using Twitter As An Instructional Tool: A Case Study In Higher

Education." Turkish Online Journal Of Educational Technology 12.4 (2013): 209-218.

Education Source. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.