Of all the social media platforms out there, and from the perspective of being an educational tool, I actually find Twitter to be one of the best ones in the business. On Twitter, there is a category and flavour for everyone! Tweets are intended to be short and sweet because of the character limit, and the ability to connect with people/communities via hashtags has led the way for the world of social media. Ultimately, this is what students want from a social media platform: connection, conciseness, and community!
Students don’t love writing, never mind reading, paragraphs of information. Thus, I have found blogging to nary be their cup o’ tea. TikTok is great, but in my experience, it is filled with mind-numbing (and dare I say, useless) videos and information. Snapchat should be avoided like the plague – the ability to send/receive pictures or chats, while knowing that they will soon disappear, is a recipe for disaster. Facebook is for ‘old people’ (which is why I love Facebook), and Instagram is more about memories than it is about dialogue, debate, or conversation.
Twitter contains the best of all worlds and therefore can be incorporated into the classroom in a variety of useful ways. Pictures and videos can be shared with ease, communication is concise and to the point, and there is a wide range of topics for people to find and connect with. I have participated in one Twitter chat a few years back, and I found it to be a great way to share ideas and resources in a concise way, while also promoting respectful dialogue and discussion.
For these reasons, I find Twitter to be a leading social media platform for educational purposes. Please feel free to disagree (or agree) with me. Like Twitter, this should be a space to share your thoughts and feelings in a respectful and appropriate manner. Does anyone else feel that Twitter has the potential to be a valuable social media platform for the classroom? Why or why not? What other social media platforms have you found to be useful educational tools? #eci831
I am glad to see an alternate view on Twitter. I avoid it, but that is more a personal bias than anything. I can see how the limited characters are useful for students who do not want to write but want immediate feedback.
Blogs have been working fairly well for me, but I have kept the minimum requirement to be one paragraph. This has given room for those that genuinely enjoy writing.
Perhaps I should look at twitter as a way to teach concise writing. It is a tricky balance between developing writing stamina and not just droning on.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many things I greatly dislike about Twitter (many of which you mentioned in your own post). However, I’m trying my best to look at the potential benefits that can come from it, albeit few and far between. One of the things I like best about Twitter is the vast community that is on there; something for every taste. I’ve also used Twitter to discuss and teach my students to identify and ignore trolling because trolls come in the masses on Twitter. I do like your idea of blogging and just setting a writing length to it. Something for me to think about for sure. Thanks for your thoughts, Mike!
I like your summaries of all of the social media platforms and I agree with lots of what you said, Mike. I think Twitter is a great educational tool as well. I’m curious if you’ve noticed any differences on the platform since it was taken over?