Mobile Media Technologies and their impact on academic collaboration
beyond the walls of the classroom
Douglas W. Conrad
C Y C L E T W O Data
Student Use Guidelines:
- Professor will Tweet 2 questions per week. Respond to each
- Send one Tweet to professor and one to another student
- Twitter is a social media tool that we are leveraging for our academic collaboration. Pay attention to focus our Tweets on our academic discussions as much as is possible and reasonable.
- Professor will Tweet 2 questions per week. Respond to each
- Send one Tweet to professor and one to another student
- Twitter is a social media tool that we are leveraging for our academic collaboration. Pay attention to focus our Tweets on our academic discussions as much as is possible and reasonable.
STUDENT SURVEY RESULTS:
1. How often do you access data on your mobile devices in a day?
- 1 time - 10%
- 5 times - 20%
- 10 times - 10%
- 20 times - 10%
- More - 50%
2. Were you a Twitter user prior to this project?
- Yes - 60%
- No - 40%
3. How clear were the goals of this project?
- Very clear - 30%
- Mostly clear - 60%
- Vague - 10%
4. How would do you rate Twitter effectiveness as a tool for communication?
- Very effective - 20%
- Effective - 20%
- Not effective - 60%
5. What factor or factors could make this tool more effective for your use?
- If I could add this account to my other twitter account
- if a teacher posted homework assignments or project info and i was held accountable to it
- Ubiquity of use
- If we had some sort of reminder when the questions were put up.
- I don't have an iPhone or other phone with a data plan, so I couldn't access the project at a whim. I had to go back to my laptop to participate.
- Don't use Twitter. It is not a very good host for communication. Maybe Facebook would be better.
- Easier access with Twitter, more integration into everyday activities. Forum-style threads for tweets would be easier to follow too.
- If I had a phone that had a data plan. I only checked twitter on my computer
- it could be more conversation oriented; it could be better organized; it could allow for more than 140 characters per tweet
6. What benefits do you see for using mobile devices for communication and collaboration related to your course work but outside the walls of the classroom?
- I see it as important for knowing whats going on in the world without having to pick up a paper and read it.
- assignments, projects, announcements for up coming events and parties.
- Integrated, cross- platform and device collaboration tools for projects
- quick and easy communication
- It allows for greater mobility and speed of information acquisition. It also allows students and teachers to communicate whenever and wherever they are. Learning is not confined to a classroom or other physical location. I guess you could say that using mobile devices for communication and collaboration outside the classroom has put education in the cloud.
- Extremely beneficial. Text and calling is easy and fast.
- Keeping up-to-date with assignments, communicating with group members for assignments, studying group arrangements, etc.
- I see it as potentially useful in quick easy communication for quesions that don't deserve and email
- It could provide an effective form of communication for organizing study groups, working on group projects, or contacting professors for questions.
1. How often do you access data on your mobile devices in a day?
- 1 time - 10%
- 5 times - 20%
- 10 times - 10%
- 20 times - 10%
- More - 50%
2. Were you a Twitter user prior to this project?
- Yes - 60%
- No - 40%
3. How clear were the goals of this project?
- Very clear - 30%
- Mostly clear - 60%
- Vague - 10%
4. How would do you rate Twitter effectiveness as a tool for communication?
- Very effective - 20%
- Effective - 20%
- Not effective - 60%
5. What factor or factors could make this tool more effective for your use?
- If I could add this account to my other twitter account
- if a teacher posted homework assignments or project info and i was held accountable to it
- Ubiquity of use
- If we had some sort of reminder when the questions were put up.
- I don't have an iPhone or other phone with a data plan, so I couldn't access the project at a whim. I had to go back to my laptop to participate.
- Don't use Twitter. It is not a very good host for communication. Maybe Facebook would be better.
- Easier access with Twitter, more integration into everyday activities. Forum-style threads for tweets would be easier to follow too.
- If I had a phone that had a data plan. I only checked twitter on my computer
- it could be more conversation oriented; it could be better organized; it could allow for more than 140 characters per tweet
6. What benefits do you see for using mobile devices for communication and collaboration related to your course work but outside the walls of the classroom?
- I see it as important for knowing whats going on in the world without having to pick up a paper and read it.
- assignments, projects, announcements for up coming events and parties.
- Integrated, cross- platform and device collaboration tools for projects
- quick and easy communication
- It allows for greater mobility and speed of information acquisition. It also allows students and teachers to communicate whenever and wherever they are. Learning is not confined to a classroom or other physical location. I guess you could say that using mobile devices for communication and collaboration outside the classroom has put education in the cloud.
- Extremely beneficial. Text and calling is easy and fast.
- Keeping up-to-date with assignments, communicating with group members for assignments, studying group arrangements, etc.
- I see it as potentially useful in quick easy communication for quesions that don't deserve and email
- It could provide an effective form of communication for organizing study groups, working on group projects, or contacting professors for questions.
Tweet Archivist activity graphing
PROFESSOR EXIT INTERVIEW:
1. What happened?
The initial opportunity we wanted to leverage was how to encourage students to discuss and work together on course topics, informally outside of class times. The initial idea of a mobile media technology that would enable and possibly open up the channel for students to experience this, was promising. In the actual use, we found that this medium was not a good fit. The limitation of 140 characters was too limiting for discussions to organically happen. Students were not sure how to keep their questions and comments into just a sentence or two and basically stopped using the tool. In the first cycle, not much other direction was given and the professor said he was not as familiar with it found the character limitation to be an un natural way for he and the students to discuss course materials. In cycle two, the directions and context given the students did help them to keep this in perspective. The tool maybe wasn't the ideal fit for their specific class, but they found ways to work within the framework. The unintended result was that the students did not just tweet questions related to the course topic, but would post mostly fringe or quasi related issues. The professor said that this was also difficult to work with in a digital format. With a face to face interaction, he could more easily redirect their "fringe" questions back to the topic but with the digital medium, he was more removed from the students and felt not as able to guide their thinking. This led to both the professor and the students dropping the Twitter use in the middle of the semester.
2. What could have been done different? Being that Westmont is a residential campus, many of the discussions of an informal nature have the possibility of happening so … maybe a tech tool more like a blog (Glassboard) that would not have the Twitter character limitations. Another thing we discussed is the possibility of a ramified scenario that would give students a quest like experience for the course that would somehow incentivize the informal discussions beyond the walls of the classroom.
3. What benefits do you see for using mobile devices for communication and collaboration related to your course work but outside the walls of the classroom?
The professor is not a big tech user and as his courses are weighted toward discussions and interactions between the students, his use of communication tech is not great. He does agree that this is an area that has potential in that we all are so familiar with mobile media tech in our daily lives. He wonders though, if tools like Twitter are not made for the type of rich discussions that he is hoping for with his students. This professor feels that rather than say "no" to the growing encroachment of tech use from our personal lives into our academic lives, we should continue to find ways to leverage these tools and guide students into becoming digital citizens.
1. What happened?
The initial opportunity we wanted to leverage was how to encourage students to discuss and work together on course topics, informally outside of class times. The initial idea of a mobile media technology that would enable and possibly open up the channel for students to experience this, was promising. In the actual use, we found that this medium was not a good fit. The limitation of 140 characters was too limiting for discussions to organically happen. Students were not sure how to keep their questions and comments into just a sentence or two and basically stopped using the tool. In the first cycle, not much other direction was given and the professor said he was not as familiar with it found the character limitation to be an un natural way for he and the students to discuss course materials. In cycle two, the directions and context given the students did help them to keep this in perspective. The tool maybe wasn't the ideal fit for their specific class, but they found ways to work within the framework. The unintended result was that the students did not just tweet questions related to the course topic, but would post mostly fringe or quasi related issues. The professor said that this was also difficult to work with in a digital format. With a face to face interaction, he could more easily redirect their "fringe" questions back to the topic but with the digital medium, he was more removed from the students and felt not as able to guide their thinking. This led to both the professor and the students dropping the Twitter use in the middle of the semester.
2. What could have been done different? Being that Westmont is a residential campus, many of the discussions of an informal nature have the possibility of happening so … maybe a tech tool more like a blog (Glassboard) that would not have the Twitter character limitations. Another thing we discussed is the possibility of a ramified scenario that would give students a quest like experience for the course that would somehow incentivize the informal discussions beyond the walls of the classroom.
3. What benefits do you see for using mobile devices for communication and collaboration related to your course work but outside the walls of the classroom?
The professor is not a big tech user and as his courses are weighted toward discussions and interactions between the students, his use of communication tech is not great. He does agree that this is an area that has potential in that we all are so familiar with mobile media tech in our daily lives. He wonders though, if tools like Twitter are not made for the type of rich discussions that he is hoping for with his students. This professor feels that rather than say "no" to the growing encroachment of tech use from our personal lives into our academic lives, we should continue to find ways to leverage these tools and guide students into becoming digital citizens.