It was suggested a few months ago that students in one of our large undergraduate courses should post comments to Twitter during class. The course we have identified will have approximately 200 students and will be taught by a prominent faculty member here at the Knowlton School of Architecture, who is supporting the use of Twitter. Course sessions will be held in our building’s auditorium, which has limited wireless connectivity, but most cell phones get reception. The students in the course are mostly freshman. I will be curious to see how many students will bring a laptop or web-enabled phone to the first class session. That is a statistic that I plan to capture (if possible–so check back!). I’m planning to hand out a small postcard-sized information piece at the beginning of class (at the doors) that will introduce Twitter, tell them about creating an account, and briefly what to do. We will be giving students a hash code to use for posting comments about the course. Twittering will not be required and participation will not be a part of the course grade.
There are many possible outcomes for the use of Twitter during class. Our hypothesis is that by eliciting real-time comments about the lectures in a public forum, students will think critically about concepts covered in class. Will this happen? Will students contribute ‘tweets’ that show that they are thinking critically? The faculty member will review and evaluate the comments to hopefully answer this question. Would an online forum, series of Facebook wall posts, (or heaven forbid) a chat room be a more appropriate format than the micro-blog for real-time course comments or discussion? There are many questions and most likely a graduate thesis related to this project. Matt and I will check in as the course unfolds.
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