Source: www.kansas.com

By: Suzanne Perez Tobias

Liz Sothman first heard about Twitter during a writing class at Wichita State University.

Someone from a local advertising agency was explaining how companies use the microblogging site to communicate, market or promote their wares, 140 characters at a time. Sothman was dubious.

“I remember being in the back row and saying, ‘This is so ridiculous,’” said Sothman, 21. “I did not want to be on this bandwagon.”

But a subsequent class, which required her to join Twitter and participate, made her a convert. Now she thinks social media tools will transform college life and the way students learn.

“I can see so many ways students and teachers could use Twitter to talk or share information,” said Sothman, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication.

“It’s only going to grow from here out.”

Adapting their teaching to take advantage of new technology, a growing number of college professors are using Twitter as an extension of the classroom — asking students to raise questions, hold discussions online, keep up with breaking news and share links to interesting stories.

Some, like Mary Knudson, who teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, use Twitter to encourage students to write concisely. She thinks the limited number of characters helps writers remember to choose words carefully, cut clutter and realize how much can be said in a small space, like a haiku.

Others say experimentation with Twitter is the latest sign of a real shift in education, away from a professor lecturing students to a more democratic and wide-ranging exchange of information.

“It changes the dynamic of the way people teach and the way people learn,” said Monte Lutz, a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins. “It encourages people to connect with each other. It can be almost a Socratic dialogue, in real time, in the class.”

Lou Heldman, distinguished senior fellow in media management and journalism at WSU, taught a class last semester that explored social networks and new media. He required students to join Twitter and use it to post links to articles relevant to the class.

“There’s a real advantage when people have to express something in the limits that Twitter provides,” said Heldman, former president and publisher of The Eagle.

“But it’s also terrific in that you can very rapidly see what a lot of other people are saying. I use Twitter almost exclusively to follow news and developments that are of interest to me in teaching.”

Last month, Heldman attended — and posted to Twitter from — an academic conference in Washington, D.C. His updates, or “tweets,” included statistics, quotes from speakers, links to articles and personal reflections:

“New trick for search.twitter.com… include emoticons in search,” Heldman wrote.

“I often will tweet the content of a seminar while I’m listening because that’s a way for me to actually focus more on what’s being said,” he said. “And it’s sort of like sharing … in real time.”

That means, of course, that students can also tweet from class, potentially broadcasting a professor’s comments across the globe.

“It’s something I’ve learned to accept, but it’s hard,” said David Kamerer of Wichita, assistant professor of public relations and new media at Loyola University Chicago.

“They might be IM’ing or on Twitter, commenting on the lecture, and I have no way of knowing,” he said. “It’s a little unnerving, but slowly it has become an accepted part of academia.”

Heldman said he doesn’t mind students texting or tweeting from class.

“What does concern me,” he said, “is what all these electronic forms are doing to attention span.”

Researchers call the phenomenon “continuous partial attention” — doing so many things at once that you don’t pay full attention to anything.

“It’s not something to decry, just something to understand and adapt to,” Heldman said. “There is a feast of information out there like our culture has never seen.”