2.2 Adapting personal Twitter use for education

While some students use Twitter to create a community, by following their group of peers for example, Twitter has been used by students mainly to connect with professionals in the field they are studying. The high profile nature of the app means that often academics, policy makers, scientists and other influential professionals regularly post content. This can include details of their most recent work or their opinion on recent events. For this reason, it can be useful for you to follow developments in your own field of study.

Here Mel Green talks about the ways in which Twitter has connected her with a global network of academics.

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Transcript: Video 10 The value of Twitter

Mel Green

So social media gives me access to people who I would not have any chance of meeting. Most of the academics, I want to say most, it’s probably half of the academics that I follow on both Twitter and TikTok, are in the US. And I’ve never been to the US actually.

So the sort of global aspect. of these communities give me access to people that I would probably never meet otherwise. It gives me access to news and current affairs in different countries. I’ve met and made friends with lecturers who are in universities in India, in Canada, and I just wouldn’t meet these people. if it wasn’t for social media. So that is a massive thing.

I don’t think I’d meet even the people that I know, that I follow and have had interactions with in the UK. I don’t think I would meet either because of my situation. I’m a mother of two, my eldest is autistic. I don’t often get the opportunity to go to conferences. So for me, I miss out on the networking opportunities that are created when you go to conferences. So social media allows me to have those networking possibilities.

I’ve just gone, you know, people that are tweeting or sharing or posting content that is relevant to me. I will sometimes just you know, bite the bullet and just send them a direct message saying, you know, I’d like to know more or I’m working on this. I’d really love your input. And yeah, as I said, it’s been invaluable for creating those kind of connections.

End transcript: Video 10 The value of Twitter

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Video 10 The value of Twitter

Here Olivia Kelly talks about how students on her research project described the benefits of Twitter in their education.

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Olivia Kelly

Twitter is very much designed and you mean you can make your Twitter account private, but that’s most people use Twitter very much to openly get, you know, whatever they want to say out there.

And the so that was one of the things that came up, but was that how easy it was to connect with other students that are studying similar topics.

Professors, researchers, you know, whoever you might want to connect with. The barriers really aren’t there and it’s quite easy. Another thing is maybe with Facebook and stuff, if you request to be friends with someone, they have to accept that request and follow you back. #

On Twitter it’s not like that. There could be a professor, some big top researcher in some field or even somebody famous or a politician. And you’re just interested in what they’re saying, you can follow them.

They don’t have to do anything, you know? They might not even realize that you’re following them, but you’re seeing what they’re tweeting. So it’s good for, you know, if you’re interested in the topics that they tweet about, you’re able to easily see that without having that same sort of feeling like, you know, they have to accept me or, you know, that kind of thing.

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Video 11 Openness of Twitter

One important thing to note is that users of Twitter may set up a ‘bio’ or biography. As might be expected for a microblogging site, this is very brief – just 160 characters long and it is in this that users show some personality and make it clear what their interests are. They might also need to include disclaimers, for example emphasizing that all views are their own, or that a retweet does not mean they endorse the views expressed in the tweet.

While much of Twitter can be controversial, it is also worth remembering how it has broken down barriers and encouraged communication. This breaking down of barriers was one of the most important things that students interviewed by Olivia Kelly discussed – watch this video where she explains this in more detail.

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Transcript: Video 12 Connections of Twitter: breaking down hierarchy

Olivia Kelly

A really interesting thing that also kind of was highlighted in the interviews was that at university there’s certainly that. that perception of a big distance between like your lecturers and your tutors and us as students kind of thing. And one of the things that students mentioned that when I was interviewing them was about how they felt that Twitter kind of broke that sort of hierarchy structure and it was, there wasn’t really this perceived, oh you can’t connect with them, you can’t speak to them.

They’re like... this is professor or whatever, you know, that Twitter kind of broke all of that and that hierarchy. So you were able to connect directly with, you know, these experts in the field that you’re studying and that wasn’t seen as inappropriate or, you know, if somebody you’re reading, you’re researching something and you’ve got this professor that’s also published, there’s... nothing stopping you from following that person on Twitter and seeing what they’re tweeting about and all helping with your studies.

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Video 12 Connections of Twitter: breaking down hierarchy

So it is important to remember the value of Twitter, one of the things that can help the advantages of this social media be really maximised is by thinking about your safety on Twitter, you learn about this next.