Social Media in the Classroom: The Twitter Project

By Lisa Marshall, Muskingum University

Personal Purpose of Social Media Twitter Project

As a professor in a communication department that has historically focused on more traditional speech communication concepts, I wanted to integrate an interactive perspective to studying and analyzing media content with my cross-listed Speech Communication/Journalism/Digital Media Design 210 course “Media History and Effects” this spring. Since the course combines both historical and current concepts about Media Literacy and the impact of different mediums on society, I thought this was an excellent chance to pilot the interactive social media project. Students were charged with the “Twitter Project”—signing up for the service and interacting on Twitter at least once a day throughout the entire semester. Topics were open, to creating a new post extending a discussion from class, posing a question to me or their classmates about the course, to sharing cool websites that illustrate and support basic class concepts. The idea was to integrate course content into the shared space and make the (to me) large class feel more intimate and connected—hoping that energy would translate into the classroom. This was my third time teaching the course. With past classes, I felt disconnected from students who did not directly engage during in-class discussion—so I hoped for a more personal experience between students—both among one another and myself with the Twitter Project.