Microblogging for Engaged Teaching and Learning

Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Publication Date

10-2014

Abstract

In this paper, we report how we put a newly developed Twitter application to work in the context of a Knowledge Management course taught at the Singapore Management University (SMU) allowing students to post and view relevant tweets in an organized manner for the benefit of collaborative class discussions and learning. Innovative elements of the ongoing project include the explorative usage of social media such as Twitter in the higher education context, student participation in providing initial evidence and qualitative feedback that tweeting is pedagogically meaningful and a newly built-in feature which can resolve tweeting challenges which occurred in class during tweeting experiments such as getting lost in a sea of tweets: a tracking device called Tweetboard which helps to create prioritized discussion points. Besides examining some of the benefits and challenges of microblogging for teaching and learning, we put emphasis on the need to deploy relevant learning analytics so that instructors can assess students performance and design individualized improvement strategies if the need arises. Feedback from undergraduate students who took part in the tweeting activities suggests that the use of twitter as a discussion platform during class can enhance both teaching and learning.

Keywords

Twitter, microblogging, higher education, learning analytics, Singapore

Discipline

Asian Studies | Computer Sciences | Higher Education | Social Media

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources; Learning and Information Systems Education

Publication

Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference Applied Computing: Porto, Portual, 25-27 October 2014

First Page

127

Last Page

134

ISBN

9789898533258

Publisher

IADIS

City or Country

Porto

Additional URL

http://www.iadisportal.org/digital-library/microblogging-for-engaged-teaching-and-learning

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