Twitter:

Micro-blogging to Increase Engagement

Cheryl Boncuore, PhDAcademic Director of Distance LearningKendall College

Aurora Dawn ReinkeProgram Director, School of BusinessKendall College

ABOUT US

Cheryl Boncuore, PhDAcademic Director of Distance LearningKendall Collegecheryl.boncuore@kendall.edu

Blackboard administrator and instructor for over 12 years.

• manage Center for Teaching and Learning

• active member of our Assessment Academy and Dean’s team

• teach for the General Education program – online and on ground.

ABOUT US

Aurora ReinkeProgram Director, School of BusinessKendall Collegeaurora.reinke@kendall.edu

I have used Blackboard for 5 years.

• taught 23 different courses in the business program

• pursuing DBA, focus is corporate sustainability & social responsibility

• spent 15 years in the software development biz

ABOUT KENDALL COLLEGE

• Since 1934

• Small urban institution in Chicago

• Subsidiary of Laureate International Universities global network

• Offers specialized fields of study:

• School of Business

• School of Culinary Art

• School of Education

• School of Hospitality Management

KENDALL COLLEGE MISSION

Kendall College cultivates students’ passions into rewarding professions

through rigorous learning experiences in the classroom, local communities,

and the world.

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO LEARN TODAY

• How Twitter was implemented at Kendall as a teaching tool

• Reactions to using Twitter as a teaching tool

• How you can do it in your class

#teachwithtwitter

OUR CHALLENGE:INCREASE RETENTION

2013 Institution Theme:

Engagement

Student to StudentStudent to FacultyStudent to Greater Community

DEFINING ENGAGEMENT

• Connecting all institutional constituents to the activities of learning, discovery, and the academic topics of study.

• Every class must explore beyond the institution’s walls to enhance learning experiences because these wider learning experiences can be found throughout the community (Fitzgerald et al. 2012).

• Fits the mission of Kendall College, which encourages that learning experiences occur “in the classroom, local communities, and the world”.

Greater Engagement Leads to Greater Retention

OUR SOLUTION

Created the Twitter Experiment

• Allowed the use of social media in classes and beyond

• Tied to institutional mission

• Tied to programmatic learning outcomes

• Tied to class objectives

OUR SOLUTION

276 students…

13 hashtags…

10 professors…

OUR SOLUTION

Twitter is:

• A great way to prompt students to do research

• A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry

• A great way to engage students & faculty

• A great way to affirm student knowledge

OUR SOLUTION

Student responses to using Twitter for a class.

OUR SOLUTION

Twitter is NOT:

• PRIVATE

• A way for instructors to STALK students

• A home work reminder tool!

OUR SOLUTION

OUR RESULTS

#deepdive #results from one class in our study: #kccap

65 students from 3 academic programs

2-quarter project to develop mixed-used property biz plan

Class meets once per week in workshop/coaching format

Twitter assignment: vague, related to “participation”

REMEMBER OUR SOLUTION

Twitter is:

• A great way to prompt students to do research

• A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry

• A great way to engage students & faculty

• A great way to affirm student knowledge

OUR RESULTS

A great way to prompt students to do research:

OUR RESULTS

A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry

OUR RESULTS

A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry

OUR RESULTS

A great way to engage students & faculty

OUR RESULTS

A great way to affirm student knowledge

OUR RESULTS

A great way to affirm student knowledge:

• Followers

• Retweet

• Favorited

• Response/Reply

• Start a Hashtag Trend

OUR RESULTS

BONUS

OUR RESULTS

Tweets with #kccap

4/29/2

013

5/1/2

013

5/3/2

013

5/5/2

013

5/7/2

013

5/9/2

013

5/11/2

013

5/13/2

013

5/15/2

013

5/17/2

013

5/19/2

013

5/21/2

013

5/23/2

013

5/25/2

013

5/27/2

013

5/29/2

013

5/31/2

013

6/2/2

013

6/4/2

013

6/6/2

013

6/8/2

013

6/10/2

0130

5

10

15

20

25

30

Instructor Students

HERE’S HOW WE USED BLACKBOARD

Common tool to capture course related information

• Used a simple “widget”

• Created a Twitterfeed button

• Students could see peer tweets

• Bb issues: different browsers responded to different widgets differently

USEFUL TOOLS:BIT.LY

USEFUL TOOLS:HOOTSUITE

USEFUL TOOLS:TWITONOMY

TECHNICAL ISSUES

• Twitonomy data available only 9 days (Twitter restriction)

• Twitter searches did not return all possible data

• Tweets not showing up at first

• Twitter alters code

• Data analysis

LESSONS LEARNED

Not if, but when we do this again:

• More training for everyone, e.g. hashtag/mention use,

• Help students understand why Twitter; be clearer on assignment layout

• Don’t assume all Gen Y students are tech savvy or on SM (most use Facebook, but prefer personal usage only)

• Students were afraid of doing it “wrong” based on “multiple choice mentality”

• For us, better balance quantifiable pieces with softer side

DO THIS NEXT

TRY integrating twitter into your class:

Twitter Assignment 1: Hashtag, you’re it!

• Current Event searches

Twitter Assignment 2: Follow You, Follow Me

• Making connections to industry leaders

Twitter Assignment 3: Tweet That, Tweety Bird!

• Sharing ideas with others

RESOURCES

Boncuore, C. (2011). Connecting pedagogy with technology: An online workshop for campus faculty development.(Doctoral dissertation). ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2011.

Chickering, A. & Ehrmann, S. C. (1996), Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. Retrieved from http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

Chickering, A. W. & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education . AAHE Bulletin (39)7 Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm

Dahlstrom, E. (2012). ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2012 (pp. 1–38). EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1208/ERS1208.pdf

Fitzgerald, H. E., Bruns, K., Sonka, S. T., Furco, A., & Swanson, L. (2012). The centrality of engagement in higher education. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16(3), 7-27.

Greenhow, C. & Gleason, B. (2012). Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literacy Practice, The Educational Forum, 76:4, 464-478

Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162–171. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004

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. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x

Kruger-Ross, M., Waters, R., & Farwell, T. (2013). Everyone’s all a-twitter about Twitter. In Using Social Media Effectively in the Classroom (pp. 171–131). New York, NY: Routledge.

Sinnappan, S., & Zutshi, S. (2013). A framework to enrich student interaction via cross-institutional microblogging. In Using Social Media Effectively in the Classroom (pp. 147–166). New York, NY: Routledge

White, J., Carey, L. & Dailey, K. (2001). Web-based instrumentation in educational survey research. WebNet Journal: Internet Technologies, Applications & Issues. 3 (1), pp. 46-50. Norfolk, VA: AACE.

THANK YOU!

Follow Us!Cheryl Boncuore, PhD@cherylbonc

Aurora Dawn Reinke@AuroraReinke

If you would like to provide feedback for this session please email: BbWorldFeedback@blackboard.com

The title of this session is: [Twitter: Micro-blogging to Increase Engagement]