Twitter for elearning
Can Twitter be used effectively for e-learning?
In some ways the most interesting thing about Twitter is also its limitation – you have to fit your content in a very limited number of characters.
This reduces the potential for using Twitter for elearning. However, if your content can fit, Twitter encourages a quick and fast stream of content, but it’s not really geared to encourage learning.
Twitter provides no real way to save or review content later apart from its hashtags. There are some systems/Apps that take Twitter feeds and give you more control, but it’s essentially a delivery-of-data (similar to RSS), and not suited to creating structured courses of learning content.
On the other hand, the enforced character limit makes Twitter a viable option for micro-learning. When combined with the abundance of mobile client apps, it enables you to use Twitter as a delivery mechanism for short bites of content (think flash-cards or “word of the day” type content).
Perhaps a better option is using Twitter as a supplementary tool for your Moodle course. It excels in real-time feedback and discussion, but also as a marketing tool and as a way to announce new courses and content for example.
There are also a number of ways to display Twitter content within your Moodle course, including using an HTML Block, or installing a 3rd party plugin which can present a stream of Tweets.
Twitter is also very popular with the younger generation. If your elearning courses are targeted mainly at them, then it makes Twitter quite attractive for connecting with your potential audience.
- H5P periodic table – 8th September 2023
- Moodle 4.0 – 15th May 2022
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Interesting post Stuart. I think like all technology with specific functionality and constraints that Twitter has its place in being used and in fact learning about our world. So not only can you use it within the constraint context with a given activity that engages and stimulates creative problem solving but also analyse its impact on society.
I view Twitter as a means of announcing ‘My news’ and retweeting what interests me. Like a remote way of announcing to your peers and friends what you’ve been doing and what you’re currently interested in. For the most part, I use my Twitter account to announce my Moodle plugin updates.