Tweeting to Learn: Understanding Twitter Through the Lens of Connectivism

Abstract

Twitter, primarily a social media outlet, has recently started foraying and gaining a foothold in higher education. Written from a student perspective, this paper attempts to explain and critically discuss the usage and popularity of Twitter as a tool of active learning in higher education. The author writes about her student experience of using Twitter in her Public Relations Communications graduate class. The paper explores and scrutinizes the social media channel within the theoretical framework of connectivism. Twitter appeared on the contemporary education scene in late October 2006. Originally developed as a social messaging microblogging tool, Twitter found its way into higher education institutions (Grosseck & Holotescu, 2008). At present, a growing number of higher educational institutions all over the world are teaching courses through this microblogging social media application. Twitter is a microblogging tool which allows users to send brief but informative messages to each other in fewer than 140 characters (Grosseck & Holotescu, 2008). The messages are called tweets, the people who tweet are called twitterers, and the people who read these tweets and respond to them are called users. It allows for real-time communication, diverse interaction, discussion with collaboration, and sharing of experiences and opinions (Skiba, 2008). Twitter has become a popular teaching tool that provides for active learning, learner attention, learner discovery, learner participation, and learner knowledge schema development. Written from a graduate student’s viewpoint, this paper examines and discusses the usage of the educational technological tool of Twitter in the classroom. The author writes in depth about her experience and observation of using Twitter in her graduate Public Relations class at an international university in south-east USA. She explains the role and usage of Twitter using the contemporary online learning theory of connectivism. The paper is divided into three sections. Section One provides a brief explanation of connectivism theory, followed by the author’s story in Section Two. The third and final section of the paper embodies the discussion where the connectivism theory is revisited in greater depth. Through her paper, the author hopes to generate relevant and meaningful debate about using Twitter as a method of student engagement in graduate classrooms.