[Asis-l] Engineering Ed > Learning In 140-Character Bites

[gerrymck]

David Zax / ASEE Prism Magazine / October 2009 /

Twitter can improve teacher-student communication, in and out of class.

In most respects, Prof. Natasha Neogi’s aerospace engineering class is
like any other. It’s a large, hour-long lecture-style course at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. But at the halfway mark,
Neogi’s class takes on a new twist. She invites her students to log on
to Twitter – the “micro-blogging” service that limits messages to 140
characters – and write in with questions. Neogi sifts through the
“tweets,” in Twitter-speak, addressing the most common sticking point
at the end of class.

Of course, plenty of professors — engineering and otherwise — have
long been using Twitter. They tweet about interesting links they’ve
come across; they complain about their flight delays; they keep us
updated on their cats. But there are also professors who, like Neogi,
have begun to bring Twitter into the lecture hall or seminar room.
[snip]

[snip]

Gordon Snyder, who directs the National Center for Information and
Communications Technologies at Springfield Technical Community College
in Massachusetts, has also experimented with the back channel. He
assigned his class a "hashtag",  [snip]

He also has found Twitter useful for getting a read on a room.
Professors are familiar with the inscrutable sight of a lecture hall
full of mute students. Are they listening? Understanding? Many
professors have adopted "clickers," polling devices used to quiz
students on a topic recently covered or to gauge students' opinions
when venturing into politically sensitive subject matter. Snyder,
whose center is funded by the National Science Foundation, considers
Twitter a "modern and much more effective" clicker.

Of course, skepticism in academia remains the norm ... . But Twitter
evangelists have ready answers for skeptics. Does it erase a necessary
distance between professor and student, eroding professional
authority? That depends on your view, says McDonald: If you think,
"'Well, I'm the teacher, and people just need to listen to what I have
to say'... then Twitter is not useful for you." Does Twitter distract
students? "I see it as a way to keep students engaged," says Snyder.
Besides, some argue, students often are already using these
technologies in class; professors are simply co-opting a tool that
would otherwise serve as a distraction. "If you can't beat 'em, might
as well join 'em," sums up Kathy Schmidt, director of the Faculty
Innovation Center for the College of Engineering at the University of
Texas - Austin.

[more]

Links To Full Article Available At

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!!! Thanks To My ISU Colleague / Dr. Jacob D. Schroeder / For The HeadsUp !!

As Previously Requested > I Am Greatly Interested In Any / All Library
; Educational Uses / Applications Of Twitter / Other Microblogging
Technologies || Please Post As A Comment(s) On The Blog Entry ...
Thanks A Million !!!

Regards,

/Gerry

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University Library
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu

There Is No Answer, Only Solutions / Olde Irish Saying

The Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed
Attributed To William Gibson, SciFi Author / Coined 'Cyberspace