PR Studies

An hour of tweeting dangerously

It all started with an innocent discussion on Twitter. Should we encourage students to tweet in lectures?

It resulted in this blog post and the follow-up comments.

There was only one way to find out: to experiment.

But how many would be in the lecture? How many would be registered on Twitter? How many would be holding a suitable device and willing to participate?

Surprise #1. The majority of first year students (based on this small and random sample) were already on Twitter and about half were prepared to give it a go.

I sprung surprise #2 on them. There were already a few people 'watching'.

We involved another through an @mention during the lecture.

Surprise #3 is no surprise at all. Employers - and consultancies in particular - are keen to work with digitally savvy students and graduates. I was able to announce a very appealing music industry internship with Rising Digital in the lecture. 

So what are the lessons?

• Anything live is better than over-prepared, pre-recorded or the linearity of PowerPoint. My mistakes were visible for all to see, and we had fun
• Clay Shirky's 'publish then filter' was clearly a memorable concept, mentioned in several tweets
• We learnt about the use of hashtags to filter conversations
• Students enjoyed the shift in the balance of power: I spoke, but they chose what to say about it
• We should trust students more (the default setting is to ban mobiles in class)
• No one in that room will forget that Twitter is a public channel and that people are watching

 

Comments

An hour of tweeting dangerously

It all started with an innocent discussion on Twitter. Should we encourage students to tweet in lectures?

It resulted in this blog post and the follow-up comments.

There was only one way to find out: to experiment.

But how many would be in the lecture? How many would be registered on Twitter? How many would be holding a suitable device and willing to participate?

Surprise #1. The majority of first year students (based on this small and random sample) were already on Twitter and about half were prepared to give it a go.

I sprung surprise #2 on them. There were already a few people 'watching'.

We involved another through an @mention during the lecture.

Surprise #3 is no surprise at all. Employers - and consultancies in particular - are keen to work with digitally savvy students and graduates. I was able to announce a very appealing music industry internship with Rising Digital in the lecture. 

So what are the lessons?

• Anything live is better than over-prepared, pre-recorded or the linearity of PowerPoint. My mistakes were visible for all to see, and we had fun
• Clay Shirky's 'publish then filter' was clearly a memorable concept, mentioned in several tweets
• We learnt about the use of hashtags to filter conversations
• Students enjoyed the shift in the balance of power: I spoke, but they chose what to say about it
• We should trust students more (the default setting is to ban mobiles in class)
• No one in that room will forget that Twitter is a public channel and that people are watching