‘What’s happening?’: Students’ use of Twitter in a Social Media seminar

1. ‘What’s happening?’: Students’ use of Twitter in a Social Media seminar by Nicola Pallitt (PhD student) Centre for Film & Media Studies Email: mz.pallitt@gmail.com Twitter: @nicolapallitt Teaching & Learning Conference 11 November 2011

2. What is Twitter? • Free micro-blogging platform • Allows users to send and receive short public messages called tweets (140 characters) • Can include links to blogs, web pages, images, videos and all other material online • You can tweet anytime: from your computer, smart phone or tablet.

4. Why use Twitter as part of existing higher ed learning environment? • Following other people & sources = build up an instant, personalized Twitter feed that meets your full range of interests, both academic and personal. • Thousands of academics & researchers at all levels of experience and across all disciplines already use Twitter daily, alongside more than 200 million other users. • Source: LSE Public Policy Group 2011

6. Tweet context: • Seminar title: Survivor Social Media • 2nd year seminar for Media Studies course FAM2000F Writing & Editing in the Media • 2nd time seminar offered, 1st time using Twitter • Class of 21 students • 4 international, 5 Zimbabwe, 12 RSA • 18 female & 3 male students • Majority 1st time users who initially only used it for seminar • Classes took place in a UCSLC teaching lab with 20 computers and Internet access • Majority of the students had access to a computer for individual use during the seminar

7. Seminar overview • Using social media to study social media • This seminar introduces students to a range of social media through theory and application. We will not only be learning about blogs and Twitter, but we will also be engaging with these existing platforms as part of the seminar’s learning environment. Seminar members will be responsible for their own personal WordPress blogs (linked to our seminar blog) and will be encouraged to share resources through social bookmarking (Diigo). We will also be tweeting about social media and current events and share our digital stories online. • Seminar blog: http://mymediauct.wordpress.com

8. Twitter brief • Tweets (10%): Start a Twitter profile and join the seminar list. Please add the seminar hashtag (#fam2000f) to each tweet related to seminar content. Do NOT treat your twitter account as a rehash of your Facebook statuses. Your first tweet needs to best describe you – introduce yourself in 140 characters! Post tweets about weekly seminar readings, social media news and current events. Reply, follow and be followed by seminar members. Shorten URLs, and use tags and mentions appropriately. No hate speech, slander or spam.

9. Why is Twitter important for journalism students in particular? • Tweeting involves practicing editing skills • Writing in a focused & concise manner, exercising vocabulary • Mentions (@) & links – acknowledging sources • Aside from self-marketing one’s creative work, Twitter is an alternative news source • Many journalists use Twitter to find information, follow-up leads or explore various news angles. • ”find sources faster, tell stories better, and build a bigger audience for their work” (Twitter4Newsrooms)

10. Irma Wilson: emergent innovation facilitator, change agent, connector, fire-starter, entrepreneur, idealist, midwife to a great future for ALL, artist and mother Mail & Guardian: Live tweets by M&G reporters at special events. Mandy Wiener: Eyewitness News Reporter and author of ‘Killing Kebble’ Cape Town's No.1 News and Talk Station Experience Cape Town via residents & visitors: Events, News, Advice. Ad hoc Initiative of private citizen. Ferial Haffajee: editor of City Press in South Africa.

11. #Malema

12. Hard news vs Soft news

13. #prayforjapan #tsunami

14. Assessing tweets • Archiving = challenging • Students submitted ‘Twitter diaries’ • Marking criteria: • Original tweets VS retweets • ‘Stealing’ tweets = plagiarism, hard to track • Content of tweets: • Use of bit.ly for URL shortening • Appropriate use of mentions (@) & hashtags (#) • News? Sharing ‘useful’ info

15. ‘Types’ of tweets • Seminar news – topic of the week, excitement (high morale, motivational), questions about upcoming essays • ‘Advertising’ latest blog posts • Some links to academic info for essays • Many Tweets reflecting on Social Media • ‘News’: Current/Breaking VS Celebrity/Gossip (entertainment) • Few Retweets, mainly original tweets • Few used #hash tags or @mentions

16. Student responses: Twitter in Edu “I like to read tweets by news sources so I can get updates on current events on short notice. I think it can be helpful for academics”

17. Student responses: Digital footprint • Do you have any Twitter or tweeting rules for yourself? “Nothing too inappropriate, since I follow businesses/internship companies and nothing that reveals too much personal information”

18. Student responses: Academics & Industry leaders “I follow some industry leaders. I try to follow any new innovations and trends in the media industry” “I don’t follow too many of them, a few who have said some interesting things about the media industry and social networks. I follow a lot of photographers, web site developers and graphic designers as this is the industry I want to get into.”

19. Student responses: Twitter feedback “IT’S ENJOYABLE AND INSIGHTFUL. JUST WOULD BE NICE IF EVERYBODY CONTRIBUTED TO TWITTER AND NOT JUST A SELECT GROUP WHICH ARE ALWAYS POSTING.” “Few tweet about stuff worth reading, no comment on the rest. Seminar is enjoyable and engaging.” “I am enjoying it. I think some people have made some good contributions on Twitter, but some seem kind of irrelevant”

21. Conclusion • Twitter may be seen as a challenge to classroom and academic discourse, but if harnessed in innovative ways by an educator and students, it has the potential to become an attractive means of furthering student centred teaching. • However, while this may be an educator’s intention, the use of technologies in a teaching and learning environment tends to highlight the differential access of these participants. • Power relations between students, the students and the seminar facilitator, authorities on social media and traditional news sources give rise to configurations, which albeit interesting, has implications for how students perceive their own roles within wider ‘networked publics’ (boyd, 2010) that extend beyond their immediate teaching and learning environments. • The aim of this presentation is provide examples from the seminar and promote discussion around using Twitter in educational contexts.

22. Twitter resources • Tony Carr Twitter workshops part of CET TeachTech series (for UCT staff) • Great resource: Amy Mollett, Danielle Moran and Patrick Dunleavy. 2011. “Available now: a guide to using Twitter in university research, teaching, and impact activities” http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/ • Laura Czerniewicz ‘Academics’ online visibility’ http://www.slideshare.net/laura_Cz/academic-visibility-online-presentation-13-october-2011 • Twitter in Education & Higher Ed blogs • YouTube videos