Activity #16 (before #15) - My research about Twitter in the classroom

WEB 2.0 & STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

I actually have been looking into the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom in terms of their connection to student engagement. Since I love me some #edtech and I had to do research on something, I thought it might be a good idea to explore this whole Web 2.0 from yet another front. This front was more technical in the research. I'll just include a little of it here, as it gets a little dry.

One of the big topics that has been studied is the use of Twitter. To date, Reynol Junco has done several studies on how Twitter helps engagement at the college-level. One of his papers, The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades, is very interesting. Using the National Survey of Student Engagement he and his partners found that the experimental group had an increase in both engagement and semester grades.

I guess I figured that Twitter would engage students more, especially if they were already Twitter users. However, the degree to which engagement happens with the use of Twitter was unexpected. As far as grades are concerned, I didn't think Twitter would have been that important. I would think that it would take a lot more than some Twitter posts to actually increase grades. Well, it just goes to show that engagement is VERY closely related to grades. This just drives home the need for me to use Web 2.0 more in my classes.

MOOC's & THEIR LEADERS

This is fascinating to me...open, online classes. That sounds crazy. I have a friend that is a professor at Northwestern University that is launching his MOOC in September and currently has almost 20000 students signed up for it. WHAT!?! Are you kidding me? That's just plain nuts! I must admit that I have almost no frame of reference for this stuff and am learning from Owen every day (one of Owen's writings on the matter: http://owenyoungman.com/2013/07/13/mooc-hysteria/). It seems that this topic is something high schools should look into. For example:

• Almost 4.3 million "students" are "enrolled" at https://www.coursera.org/.
• There at 417 courses
• 84 colleges and universities are offering these courses
• Courses are FREE

I can't help but to think that high school teachers, especially in humanities, need to take advantage of these learning opportunities. For instance, Owen is one of the world's experts on media having been responsible for the Chicago Tribune's web presence, Red Eye, and Trib Local. His place in modern media education is at or near the top. Learning from him is EXACTLY the kind of content high schools need to use to engage students and get them ready for college-like environments.

GO MOOCs!!!

Here is a preview of Professor Youngman's class from YouTube:


References:

Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132.

http://owenyoungman.com/