Teacher Education Division Council for Exceptional Children 2011 Using Twitter to Promote Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Professional Development Nancy J. Aguinaga, Ph.D. Southeast Missouri State University

Overview  Introduce the fundamentals of using Twitter  Discuss how Twitter can develop critical thinking and communication skills in students  Introduce research on the impact of using Twitter in my teaching on student engagement

Familiarity In general In education

Twitter defined Microblogging 140 characters Communicate to your followers and follow those you choose – Once you sign up to follow someone, you receive their messages instantly on your smart phone or on your Twitter webpage Exchange of thoughts – Messages can be sent to all followers or to specific followers as public or private tweets

Why Twitter for the classroom? Easily accessible Free Digital natives Transparency, professional Encourages participation and communication Collaboration Meaningful content Feedback Assessment

Digital environment Any-time, any-place learning Critical thinking – 140 Community of Learners – Exchange of ideas

Pre-Service educators Bulletin board Increase, maintain engagement Communication skills Current events, resources

In-service educators Initial Support – Real-time feedback Ongoing Mentoring Professional Development

DOES THE USE OF TWITTER INCREASE STUDENT PARTICIPATION? Increase participation, Increase learning MY RESEARCH QUESTION

How I am using Twitter I invited half of my students (in one online class)to follow me and each other Periodically I will post a question or a thought on topics we are covering Announcements Quick FAQ’s FYI Forum with same info for entire class

Data collected – Number of electronic interactions I had with students in both groups, and the number of electronic interactions they had with each other – Questionnaire (anonymous) completed by students regarding their perceived level of connectedness to me and to other members of the class Pre (4 weeks) and post (10 weeks)

Number of student initiated electronic interactions Twitter Group (19) Me – 67 Each other – 29 Non-twitter group(18) Me – 38 Each other – 16 Ten weeks Including , forum, twitter

Questionnaire – connectedness to classmates and professor? Anonymous – pre given before random groups selescted Demographic Info: Age range, Geographic location, Undergrad, grad, other, # of online classes taken before Lickert :1= very unconnected, 2=somewhat unconnected, 3=neutral, 4= somewhat connected, 5=very connected 8 Survey items

Survey responses (pre-post) TwitterNon-twitter How connected do you feel to Southeast? – 4.0 How connected do you feel to your college? – 4.0 How connected do you feel to your program of study? – 4.4 How connected do you feel to this class, Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders? 3.0 – – 3.3 How connected do you feel to your classmates in this class, Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders? 2.1 – – 3.2 How connected do you feel to the professor of Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders? 3.3 – – 3.8 How connected have you felt in previous face-to-face classes? 3.9 – – 4.0 How connected have you felt in previous online classes? 2.2 – – 2.1

IMPLICATIONS

More communication, more connected 52% of world population under 30 yoa 75% of this generation uses social media in U S Community of Learners – Carry on conversation outside of class Research has frequently shown that greater participation correlates with better academic performance (Barkley, 2010) 2010 Pew Research Center

Lessons learned Create a group in TweetDeck to keep class contacts somewhat separate Invite all classes to follow Effective – not invasive (FB)

Questions/Thoughts Thank you Be green and prosper!