{"id":1065,"date":"2013-03-20T10:27:22","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/telsocsci\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:16:23","slug":"twitter-for-teaching-and-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/telsocsci\/social-media\/twitter-for-teaching-and-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter for Teaching and Research"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NodeXL<\/a>

Twitter Network.\u00a0Marc_Smith<\/a> \/ CC (BY 2.0)<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

I recently began a Master\u2019s degree in Digital Education with University of Edinburgh. The first module is Investigating Digital Environments for Learning, and one of the environments we looked as was Twitter. In a tutorial the course tutor, Prof Hamish McCleod, said that when he first encountered Twitter he just “didn’t get it”. I also felt the same when I first signed up for Twitter (as I\u2019m interested in learning technology, I tend to sign up for lots of new social media applications, many of which get discarded after a while). Objections to Twitter are usually along the lines of \u201cWhat can you say in 140 characters?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s all about celebrities and what they had for breakfast\u201d; \u201cit\u2019s full of racist trolls\u201d; \u201cit\u2019s a trivial medium – what could it possibly offer me, or teaching and learning?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact is that while you might occasionally encounter such trivia, it\u2019s up to you who you follow, so you don\u2019t have to get that sort of stuff in your timeline. You\u2019ll find that, as Mark Carrigan says \u201cthe academic Twittersphere (for lack of a better term) is a relatively self-enclosed ecosystem\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the image problem that Twitter has with a lot of academic staff – they just don\u2019t see the point. I do sense a switch in this attitude though, as more and more academics start to use it, and they see their peers using it, and their students, and their institutions. What they will find, once they dip their toes is that it is an incredibly useful medium for teaching, learning and research.<\/p>\n

Some downsides to Twitter<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Equality of access for students – not everyone can, or will join Twitter. You need to provide some sort of access for these students, such as embedding a Twitter feed in a VLE, web page or blog.<\/li>\n
  2. Risks to personal and institutional reputation from injudicious tweets.<\/li>\n
  3. It can lead to the oversimplification of debates.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Some things you can do with Twitter<\/h2>\n

    Crowdsource information, and requests for help with your research:<\/p>\n

    \"twitresearch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Some researchers have crowdsourced funding. In addition to information gathering, you can ask for observations, ask for people to do data analysis, transcribe or edit documents.<\/p>\n

    Publicise your blog:<\/p>\n

    \"blogtweet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    You can also use Twitter to ask for guest blog posts to build up your network and increase interest in your research.<\/p>\n

    Publicise your research and publications:<\/p>\n

    \"twitpaper\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Twitter is also a good way to keep up with news in your field by following prominent figures.<\/p>\n

    Twitter for teaching and learning<\/h2>\n

    Things you can do include:<\/p>\n