Is Twitter a Pedagogical Tool in Higher Education? Perspectives of Education Graduate Students

Abstract

This study presents the perspectives of education graduate students of using Twitter as a pedagogical tool for 15 weeks as a required social media activity in class. The results indicated that each course participants reported a positive learning experience of using Twitter. Although this was their first experience with Twitter, participants reported that Twitter provided space and opportunities to engage in academic activities as a new pedagogical tool. Participants reported they used Twitter to receive immediate and frequent course information, ask questions to the mentor, update course assignment, and to share helpful information from outside the text book to their fellow classmates and mentor. This study also highlights suggestions and implication of Twitter in personal and professional developments.

Keywords

• Twitter
• student engagement
• higher education
• pedagogy
• professional development
• social media