A Librarian and a Hashtag: Embedded Virtually in a Classroom via Twitter
Presenter: Ellen Hampton Filgo, Baylor University
Summary: Presenter experimented with using Twitter as an instructional/learning tool in a small class. Proved to be a great experience – allowed her to be virtually embedded in a live class during the class meeting times and to provide resources to students in a “just in time” manner to students when their interest was ignited. Also, allowed her to form a much stronger connection to the students (she became “our librarian” to them) and to be involve with their research processes from the start.
Other In-Class Experiments with Twitter:
- Monica Rankin – UT Dallas – used Twitter during lecture class
- Cole Camplese – Twitter backchannel at Penn State
Her experiment – use Twitter in a smaller class and involve a librarian in the process
- Worked with Dr. W. Gardner Campbell, director of Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning Used in New Media Studies class
- 9 students all honors students
- Intro to new media – using media tools to help learn Required to blog, tag in deliscious, participate in class discussion via Twitter Motherblog
How she managed the project
- tied everything together Used Tweetdeck -
- monitored group and hashtag
- created a Twitter group – to group as a class
- instructor asked the students to greet the Librarian in every class
- sent links to the class as they met - books in catalog – websites, wikipedia – basically related to the author being discussed – google scholar citations
- explained library resources – explained twitter (RT, @ replies)
- included some just for fun Tweets
- invitations to come to ref desk
- students attended a social media conference at the college – saw a small a model of broadcast tweeting – when it hit home how Tweeting works
Observations:
- model what you want your students to do
- Librarian Jazz – improvisational – join in with the discussion without adding the wrong note -
- make connections between class and the students own personal knowledge Blogging
- she made great connection with students -
- experience enhanced by posting to class blog- posted about library resources – getting at student’s research process a lot earlier – send resources even earlier in the process
Student responses
- very positive
- Asked for help in other classes
- Students very comfortable with asking librarian for help
- referred to her as “our librarian”
- Informal survey – good feedback – students more aware of library resources “including librarians themselves”
- Still gets questions through Twitter and Facebook
Best Practices
- Use a hashtag
- Archive class tweets (Library of Congress) – TwapperKeeper (can’t do it after the fact)
- Use a URL shortener that uses statistics
- Considerations: What about “Tweckling”? – heckling the librarian or other participants
- Need to consider how you will set things up
- Can just do one class session – time consuming
Points to Consider:
- Is Twitter just a distraction?
- modeling good behavior – laptop is more than just notetaking, can learn with
- Great for both large and small experiences
- Are certain classes better suited?
- Not sure yet Future Directions – blogging a lot more – good interaction, more opportunity for interaction
- how do you scale up?
How to initiate this experience:
- follow tweets/blogs of students Find profs who use twitter professionally or personally
- Integrate Twitter into embedded librarian program New media, journalism, educational technology
- She did follow students and they were required to follow her
- Students were allowed to lock down account for privacy
Additional tools
- Tweetmenot – can mute users discussions
- Yammer – internal network connected to particular domain
- Edmoto – educational network
- Twitter HotSeat – use institutional account
