Twitter as an ally in learning

Parents, teachers, and school administrators are wary of student use of social networking sites, particularly Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that enables users to post messages (or Tweets) up to 140 characters. It sits well with the students since they need not compose a long article, which admittedly most of them find it hard to sustain.

Our students spend so much time with it, losing their precious little time to studying. We are afraid that, if unchecked, this will have a detrimental effect on our students’ academic performance.

A recent study, however, shows just the opposite. The study, “The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades,” is led by the team of Reynol Junco, a leading scholar who explores the nexus between social media and education.

125 college students participated in the study. One group of 70 students was required to use Twitter for educational purposes. Another group of 55 students was required to communicate through a traditional learning system.

The findings belie the claim by many that social networking sites, particularly Twitter, are detrimental to the academic performance of students. Junco et. al. found out the following:

• The Twitter group’s score in engagement—defined as “the amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience”—was almost twice as much as the group who used traditional communication methods.


• At the end of the semester the Twitter group’s average GPA was .51 higher than the control group.


• Students were also surprisingly comfortable with candid expressions of their feelings and their short-comings.


• Student use of Twitter generated more and different types of questions than would have been generated in typical class discussions on the same topic.


• Using Twitter in educationally relevant ways had a positive effect on student engagement.

Social media is not just a fad, only popular to this generation, and will soon wither into oblivion. It is, as Eric Qualman argues, a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

As teachers, we must understand the dynamics of our students. We must meet them where they are, Reynol Junco said. And nearly all of them are in social media. We must seize the opportunity this digital era presents to us and take full advantage of the social media, particularly Twitter, if only to help our students learn.