Into the Twittersphere: Using microblogging technology to build

community

Gillian Lord (glord@ufl.edu)Lara Lomicka

(lomicka@sc.edu)

Introduction: Discussion

• How many of you use Twitter?

• What are Twitter’s (or microblogging’s) potential advantages for use with classes?

Background - Microblogging

• What is microblogging? – "a form of blogging that allows users to

write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user" (www.wikipedia.org)

• Popular microblogging tools:

Microblogging Tools

Background - Twitter

• What is ?– A social networking and microblogging

service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.

– Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers (followers).

– Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. 

– A service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Twitter in FL learning and teaching• Many overviews of what Twitter is and why

educators might benefit from it (i.e., Stevens 2008)

• Educators vouch for Twitter’s use in the classroom : – Alan Haskvitz, “Twitter in the Classroom,” Reach Every

Child – Kate Messner, “

Making a Case for Twitter in the Classroom,” School Library Journal (December 1, 2009)

– National Education Association, “Can Tweeting Help Your Teaching?” NEA Today Magazine (2009)

– Laura Walker, “Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools,” Tech & Learning (April 16, 2009).

Twitter in FL learning and teaching• Selected empirical studies

– Corbett, Mace & Regehr 2008 • Can be used to build community and support learning in the

classroom (engagement and social use)• Perhaps not as effective at impacting learning

– Antenos-Conforti 2009• Creates a virtual extension of the physical classroom • Fostered strong sense of community; encouraged participation

– Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009a• Instructional benefits include connecting classmates and

instructor

– Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009b• Encourage free-flowing just-in-time interactions and thus

enhance social presence in online courses• Connect with a professional community of practice

Many claim Twitter can increase social presence, connectivity and a sense of community, but few have set about to empirically and systematically test these

claims.

Our goals

1. Determine if Twitter participants develop a sense of community through this medium.

2. Discover how and why participants interact via Twitter.

PROJECTS

Two contexts

• Twitter in two contexts– Context 1: Intermediate French class

• 1 semester (fall 2009)• Students tweeted among themselves and

with native French speakers– Context 2: Foreign language teaching

methods class• 1 semester (fall 2009)• Teaching assistants tweeted among

themselves and with 80+ other TAs in the US and Canada

Intermediate French

• 4th semester French, university level• 13 students (11 female, 2 male)• Students tweeted 3x weekly for 9

weeks– 2 tweets in the TL; 1 tweet in the NL– Used common hashtag (#)

• Tweets represented status updates and current happenings in their lives

• GOAL: build community among learners in the US and in France; extend learning outside of classroom

Intermediate French

Foreign Language Teaching Methods

• Graduate course for new language TAs– At UF: 9 students (1 male, 8 female)– Elsewhere: over 80 tweeters from US and

Canada, variety of backgrounds and institutions*

• Tweeted 3x weekly– 2 original posts– 1 @reply– Used common hashtag (#FLTeach)

• GOAL: build community to share, reflect on experiences as new teachers

*Tweets analyzed here are from 7 UF students who gave their permission and 31 survey respondents (including those 7 UF

students)

Student surveys

• Unique surveys used in each class–Common aspects surveyed:

• Familiarity with Twitter prior to project

• Reactions to Twitter project• Open-ended opinion questions

–Different aspects surveyed:• Useful aspects of Twitter• Frequency, purpose and content of

tweets

Content of tweets

• Content analysis– Tweets examined

for evidence of social presence1

– Percentages of indicators that were• Affective• Interactive• Cohesive

1 Following Rourke et al. (2001) and Lomicka & Lord (2007)

SURVEY RESULTSIntermediate French Class

Intermediate French class

• Had you heard of Twitter prior to this class?– Yes = 13– No = 0

• Did you already have a Twitter account?– Yes = 3– No = 10

• Are you comfortable using new technologies?– Yes = 12– No = 1

Intermediate French class

• Opinions on using Twitter pre/post

Love idea Like it Neutral Do not like it

Hate it0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

2

4 4

3

0

3

5

3

1 1

PRE-semesterPOST-semester

Intermediate French class

• Advantages to using Twitter

being able to have delayed communication

being able to have instantaneous communication

using language with professor outside of class

following French students in Troyes

being able to reply to someone’s tweet

building community with classmates in 209 and in France

having a 140 character limit

being able to share information

using language with classmates outside of contact time

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Features of Twitter useful in learning French

(# responses)

Intermediate French class

• Opinions on Twitter for learning French language and culture

Intermediate French class

• Opinions on Twitter as a social tool

Intermediate French class

• Open-ended questions– What did you like most about Twitter?

• Reading the French students’ tweets• Knowing about the French students lives• Relevant to real life language use• Random comments were fun• Could reply to others• Helped feel more comfortable speaking

– What did you like least about Twitter? • Using hashtags• The word limit• Sometimes feel like there is nothing to say

CONTENT ANALYSIS RESULTS

Intermediate French Class

Intermediate French class

Intermediate French class

Indicators Raw #s

Total tweets 623

Total indicators 1004

Total affective 346

Total interactive 276

Total cohesive 29 % affective % interactive % cohesive

Series1 34.4621513944224

27.4900398406374

2.88844621513944

5.0015.0025.0035.0045.0055.0065.0075.0085.0095.00

Indicators of Social Presence (class 1)

Perc

enta

g

SURVEY RESULTSTeaching Methods Class

Teaching Methods class

• Institutions represented*• University of Florida = 7• University of South Carolina = 7• University of North Carolina = 13• Indiana University = 2• Lakeridge Jr. High School (Orem, UT) = 1• Missionary Training Center, Lone Peak High

School = 1

*Recall that over 80 participants were involved in the tweeting, but only 31 filled out the final survey, through which permission to analyze

data/tweets was granted. Therefore, only these 31 survey responses are considered here. In the content analysis, only the tweets of the 7 UF

students who gave permission and did not cancel their Twitter accounts were analyzed.

Teaching Methods class

• Languages taught– Spanish = 25– French = 2– Italian = 2– Portuguese = 1– German = 1

Teaching Methods class

• Prior familiarity with Twitter– Yes = 4*– No = 27

*Of those 4, only two had Twitter accounts that they used with any regularity.

Teaching Methods class

• Frequency of posts (out of 31 responses)

– Required 3x/week = 17– 3-5x/week = 10– More than 5x/week = 2– Fewer than 3x/week = 2

• Frequency of replies (out of 30 responses)

– Required 1x/week = 13– A few times/week = 12– Several times/week = 1– More often than that = 1

Teaching Methods class

• With whom did you connect most through your tweets?

Instructors teaching same language as

me

Instructors at other institutions

Instructors at my own institution

Nobody Everyone equally0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Teaching Methods class• What were the main topics of your

tweets?

Reac

tion

to m

y st

uden

ts

Gettin

g ne

w id

eas ab

out t

each

ing

Reac

tions

to m

y te

xtbo

ok

Bond

ing

Wha

t I w

as le

arni

ng a

s a

teac

her

Frus

trat

ion

Happi

ness

Emot

iona

l res

pons

e to

som

ethi

ng th

at h

appe

ned

in c

lass

Resp

onse

to som

ethi

ng som

eone

else

pos

ted

Asking

for a

dvice

Reco

untin

g wha

t hap

pene

d in

class

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Teaching Methods class

• Opinions on using Twitter

Teaching Methods class

• Open-ended questionIs there anything else you would like to share with me about your experiences with Twitter and/or your teaching methodology course this semester?– It was a really fantastic idea and a good experience for me as a first semester

teacher… I really hope it continues into next semester!– It really helped all of the TA's bond and gave us a way to share our

experiences and encourage each other.– I thought it was really helpful to read other people's tweets. Even if I didn't get

concrete support/suggestions/advice, it was really nice to know that everyone was struggling with the same sort of things I was. It made me feel less alone.

– I think Twitter would have been more beneficial to my university if our professor cared that we used it.

– It was great to be able to take the time to reflect.– A lot of people wrote remarks about their classes that had absolutely no value

for other people to read. That gave me the feeling that I was spending time reading a lot of text that I didn't learn from, or that didn't make me think new thoughts. I did get one good idea from someone's tweet, though, that inspired me.

– I think using Twitter was less beneficial to me as a teacher than writing longer reflections and actually thinking about what I was doing as a teacher. The 140 character limit does not lend itself to deep thought.

CONTENT ANALYSIS RESULTS

Teaching Methods Class

Teaching Methods class

Teaching Methods class

Indicators Raw #s

Total tweets 400

Total indicators 582

Total affective 185

Total interactive 329

Total cohesive 68

*Of the 400 tweets, a total of 71 (17.75%) were not coded as indicating any type of social presence. Others were coded with more than one indicator.

% affective % interactive % cohesive

Series1 31.786941580756 56.5292096219931

11.6838487972508

5.00

25.00

45.00

65.00

85.00

Indicators of Social Presence (class 2)

Perc

enta

ge

DISCUSSION

Attitudes and Opinions

Intermediate French

• Generally favorable• Appreciative of

opportunity for additional communication

• Frustrated that the French students tended not to use twitter as much as the Americans

Teaching Methods• Generally favorable• Appreciate community• Frustrated with trying

to reflect in limited characters

Participant interaction

Intermediate French• More affective than

interactive• Hardly any cohesive

Teaching Methods• More interactive than

affective• Some cohesive• More cohesive

indicators than in the language class

Conclusions

• Return to goals:1. Sense of community?

» A sense of community was established through the Twitter interactions but differed in each class.

2. Participant interaction?» Social interaction was

demonstrated largely through affective and interactive indicators (in differing proportions in the two classes, due to task demands and population make-up), with fewer indicators of cohesion.

Challenges

• Many useful features of Twitter were not emphasized or used: – Direct messages (d)– Retweeting (RT)

• Following other tweeters should be required for class projects

• Difficult to retrieve tweets for research/analysis after the fact

Audience participation

• Questions?

• Have you used Twitter with your classes? How? Was it successful?

• What do you use for community building tools?

Selected references• Antenos-Conforti, E. (2009). “Microblogging on Twitter: Social Networking in

Intermediate Italian Classes.” In L. Lomicka and G. Lord (Eds.), The Next Generation: Social Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language Learning (pp. 59-90). San Marcos, TX: Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium.

• Corbett, S., Mace, K. & Regehr, G. (2008). “Twitter in the online classroom: Case study report.” Retrieved from www.kevinmace.net/media/.../ED690_data_analysis_Twitter_Group.pdf.

• Dunlap, J., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009a). “ Instructional uses of Twitter.” In P. R. Lowenthal, D. Thomas, A. Thai, & B. Yuhnke (Eds.), The CU Online handbook. Teach differently: Create and collaborate (pp. 46-52). Raleigh, NC: Lulu Enterprises. Retrieved from http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Documents/2009/Chapter_8.pdf

• Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009b). “Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social presence.” Journal of Information Systems Education 20(2).

• Lomicka, L. & Lord, G. (2007). “Social presence in virtual communities of foreign language teachers.” System 35, 208-228.

• Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presence in asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14, 51-70.

• Stevens, V. (2008). “Trial by Twitter: The rise and slide of the year’s most viral microblogging platform.” TESL-EJ 12(1).