Using Twitter in teaching and learning, does it have potential?

Founded in 2006, Twitter is a social media/networking tool that can be used not only in the social environment but to aid teaching and learning. However, how much can really be said or done in just 140 characters? Twitter enables students to collaborate, not only with each other but with their teacher. It also provides the opportunity for students who are absent from class to also engage in what is happening in the classroom either in real time or after the class (discussion) has taken place. This collaboration can be extended to include people from all over the world - enabling collaboration with other learning institutions, businesses and organisations. Twitter can also act as a depositary for resources such as links to online resources, recommended books, up to date information on real life subjects (eg comments from government officials could be followed for business students) etc It can also be used as a direct teaching & learning tool. It provides the opportunity for students to practice their writing skills eg how to consolidate what they want to say without the need to revert to 'txt spk'! Students can also use it to practice their use of different tenses, language development etc. It can be used as a formative feedback tool from teacher/assessor to student and for students to post questions if they need help with their work. Twitter is used by some teachers for the plenary either at the end of the lesson or at the end of the day to remind students what was covered and/or inform parents and guardians of what had been covered. Students can be asked to use Twitter to create tweets on behalf of characters that they are studying eg The chancellor or Prime Minister etc. Using Twitter with Business students Twitter could work well with my students as many of them use social media to communicate with their peers. However, one area that would need to be monitored is to ensure that they refrain from using 'text speak'. In addition, as a medium, (from feedback), my students prefer other social media tools such as Facebook, instagram (for pictures and videos)and snapchat. They tend to feel that Twitter is slightly more sophisticated and appealing to a more adult audience. However, in terms of developing employability skills for business, Twitter would be the most appropriate for disciplines such as accounting & finance, PR, economics, HR etc. Whilst the other social media mentioned such as Facebook, instagram and snapchat would suit the more creative disciplines within business such as marketing, promotion, sales, design etc. The limit of 140 characters will possibly also result in high quality submissions as students will also think about what they are writing. Business students are likely to use Twitter to post feedback and commentary on live events such as guest speaker talks, presentations, lectures etc. They could also use it quite well to communicate when working on joint projects for their group tasks. Barriers and issues There are a few barriers and/or issues that may be posed by using Twitter ie: 1) Students may not want to engage with this tool as it does not suit their personal preference 2) The limitation of 140 characters may be insufficient to tackle some tasks ie submitting a number of shorter tweets would not be appropriate eg Twitter could not be used for students to present their CVs (ie without a link to an actual document) 3) Some students may not have the language skills necessary to post appropriate tweets online.