Westmont College
Academic Technology Faculty Pilot Projects
TWITTER and GLASSBOARD
GOING MOBILE:
Mobile Media Technologies and their Impact on Academic
Collaboration Beyond the Walls of the Classroom
Mobile Media Technologies and their Impact on Academic
Collaboration Beyond the Walls of the Classroom
What action can I take to discover the impact of mobile media technologies on academic collaboration and communication beyond the walls of the classroom?
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this action research project was to discover the effect of mobile media technologies on the learning thought of as "informal” that happens in the spaces and times outside of the classroom. Current research has shown that the use of mobile media tools has begun to change our understanding of place. When we can communicate, collaborate and relate without the boundaries of time or space, our understanding of place or where we are grounded is altered. It is possible that this change can be leveraged by schools to incorporate the academic collaboration and knowledge building that happens beyond the walls of the classroom into the students' "formal" learning environment. The impact that mobile media technologies have in this space was the focus of this action research project.
CYCLE RESEARCH QUESTION:
If I set up a Twitter pilot project in an academic course, how will use of this mobile media technology impact academic collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom?
EVIDENCE USED TO EVALUATE THE ACTION:
The action I took was to set up a new Twitter user group - one team-teaching group of two teachers and their class and gave them a context for the use of this tool. I consulted extensively with this new set of participants to make sure that Twitter was a good fit for their pedagogical goals. The professors teach an education department course to student teachers working on their teaching credentials. In the current course, the students spend the majority of their course time, interning in local K-12 classrooms. In my pre-project discussions with the teachers, they thought that Twitter would be a good fit for their pedagogical goals of encouraging their students' academic collaboration outside of the classroom meeting times. The specific use guidelines given to this class involved the quantity of tweets in a week and the professors regularly gave direction for content. In the second group, I helped the student group, an AV support student group set up Glassboard accounts and had an initial discussion about the context for their participation in this action research project. I gave this second group the same use guidelines as the first.
As a tech steward, my involvement was in the work to strategize with the users groups, help with the set up and implementation of the tools, guide the assessment and lead the reflection. I was not involved in the day-to-day Twitter or Glassboard conversations. To capture and assess the user group experience, I solicited responses to the same questions for both groups using a Surveymonkey poll, coded the responses and analyzed the data. It is the students’ response to their participation with these mobile media tools rather than their specific tweet-by-tweet discussions that I used to assess the action. Tweet Archivist was used to take a snapshot each week during the cycle of the topics that the Twitter user group participants were discussing. There were 19 students and two professors in the Twitter group and 7 students in the Glassboard group.
EVALUATION
The 25 participants in this cycle used mobile media technologies that were originally designed for social communication, to work together on academic projects. The mobility of these tools was a good fit for their process as they were rarely in the same physical space at the same time. While they were able to connect using their laptops, the device of choice for these users was the smartphone. The web interface did allow for the 3 students who did not have a smartphone to participate in the discussions. The ubiquity of these mobile tools has been seen as a distraction in our learning environments as they are both a computer and a personal device that we all carry with us everywhere. Rather than turning these devices off or locking them away when they are brought into our learning environments, the data suggests the potential for strategic use of these devices in and out of the classroom.
Read the full report
The purpose of this action research project was to discover the effect of mobile media technologies on the learning thought of as "informal” that happens in the spaces and times outside of the classroom. Current research has shown that the use of mobile media tools has begun to change our understanding of place. When we can communicate, collaborate and relate without the boundaries of time or space, our understanding of place or where we are grounded is altered. It is possible that this change can be leveraged by schools to incorporate the academic collaboration and knowledge building that happens beyond the walls of the classroom into the students' "formal" learning environment. The impact that mobile media technologies have in this space was the focus of this action research project.
CYCLE RESEARCH QUESTION:
If I set up a Twitter pilot project in an academic course, how will use of this mobile media technology impact academic collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom?
EVIDENCE USED TO EVALUATE THE ACTION:
The action I took was to set up a new Twitter user group - one team-teaching group of two teachers and their class and gave them a context for the use of this tool. I consulted extensively with this new set of participants to make sure that Twitter was a good fit for their pedagogical goals. The professors teach an education department course to student teachers working on their teaching credentials. In the current course, the students spend the majority of their course time, interning in local K-12 classrooms. In my pre-project discussions with the teachers, they thought that Twitter would be a good fit for their pedagogical goals of encouraging their students' academic collaboration outside of the classroom meeting times. The specific use guidelines given to this class involved the quantity of tweets in a week and the professors regularly gave direction for content. In the second group, I helped the student group, an AV support student group set up Glassboard accounts and had an initial discussion about the context for their participation in this action research project. I gave this second group the same use guidelines as the first.
As a tech steward, my involvement was in the work to strategize with the users groups, help with the set up and implementation of the tools, guide the assessment and lead the reflection. I was not involved in the day-to-day Twitter or Glassboard conversations. To capture and assess the user group experience, I solicited responses to the same questions for both groups using a Surveymonkey poll, coded the responses and analyzed the data. It is the students’ response to their participation with these mobile media tools rather than their specific tweet-by-tweet discussions that I used to assess the action. Tweet Archivist was used to take a snapshot each week during the cycle of the topics that the Twitter user group participants were discussing. There were 19 students and two professors in the Twitter group and 7 students in the Glassboard group.
EVALUATION
The 25 participants in this cycle used mobile media technologies that were originally designed for social communication, to work together on academic projects. The mobility of these tools was a good fit for their process as they were rarely in the same physical space at the same time. While they were able to connect using their laptops, the device of choice for these users was the smartphone. The web interface did allow for the 3 students who did not have a smartphone to participate in the discussions. The ubiquity of these mobile tools has been seen as a distraction in our learning environments as they are both a computer and a personal device that we all carry with us everywhere. Rather than turning these devices off or locking them away when they are brought into our learning environments, the data suggests the potential for strategic use of these devices in and out of the classroom.
Read the full report
Pilot Project Partner Reflections
Using Twitter to Leverage Technology in Education
In fall 2012, Doug Conrad approached my colleague, Professor Michelle Hughes, and I with the idea of using Twitter to enhance classroom discourse. During each spring semester we place student teachers in a wide variety of local schools and we had been looking for a technology to keep us connected, so we agreed to give Twitter a try. Though Michelle and I did not have Twitter accounts, Doug assured us that he would provide us with the necessary knowledge and support. He did just that. Doug supported us as individual professors and then collectively with our students by helping to set up a closed-conversation Twitter account. Using this technology, we stayed connected, celebrated one another’s success, and collaborated throughout the semester. At a few points during the semester, Doug offered support and ideas to enrich the experience. Towards the end of the semester, we were invited to present this innovative use of technology at the California Council of Teacher Educator Conference. We then followed up by writing an article for the CCTE News (Summer 2013). We are now beginning our second year using Twitter to leverage technology to enhance the teaching-learning process. Jane Wilson, Associate Professor of Education
OAT, specifically Doug Conrad, lent great support to my colleague, Jane Wilson, and me in Spring 2013, when we partnered together and used Twitter as a means to connect, collaborate, and celebrate during the student teaching experience. Doug was accessible, interested in our work, and offered suggestions to support the social media experiment. The teamwork beared fruit in the form of a published article and presentation to statewide colleagues. Additionally, we are continuing the Twitter project in Spring 2014 with our new student teaching cohort. Michelle Hughes, Associate Professor of Education
Using Twitter to Leverage Technology in Education
In fall 2012, Doug Conrad approached my colleague, Professor Michelle Hughes, and I with the idea of using Twitter to enhance classroom discourse. During each spring semester we place student teachers in a wide variety of local schools and we had been looking for a technology to keep us connected, so we agreed to give Twitter a try. Though Michelle and I did not have Twitter accounts, Doug assured us that he would provide us with the necessary knowledge and support. He did just that. Doug supported us as individual professors and then collectively with our students by helping to set up a closed-conversation Twitter account. Using this technology, we stayed connected, celebrated one another’s success, and collaborated throughout the semester. At a few points during the semester, Doug offered support and ideas to enrich the experience. Towards the end of the semester, we were invited to present this innovative use of technology at the California Council of Teacher Educator Conference. We then followed up by writing an article for the CCTE News (Summer 2013). We are now beginning our second year using Twitter to leverage technology to enhance the teaching-learning process. Jane Wilson, Associate Professor of Education
OAT, specifically Doug Conrad, lent great support to my colleague, Jane Wilson, and me in Spring 2013, when we partnered together and used Twitter as a means to connect, collaborate, and celebrate during the student teaching experience. Doug was accessible, interested in our work, and offered suggestions to support the social media experiment. The teamwork beared fruit in the form of a published article and presentation to statewide colleagues. Additionally, we are continuing the Twitter project in Spring 2014 with our new student teaching cohort. Michelle Hughes, Associate Professor of Education