Clearly this has been a tremendous year of growth for Twitter.
Current valuation estimates of the company are in the order of $1 billion, and users are expected to reach 250 million over the next few years.
A an eLearning provider, on a daily basis, we are talking to schools that looking at using it both for themselves as well as possibly having their students use it in some fashion.
Campus Technology recently reported, http://www.campustechnology.com/Home.aspx from a recent Faculty Focus http://www.facultyfocus.com/survey that of 1,958 higher education professionals 30.7% are using twitter currently and another 20.6% reported that there was a reasonable chance they’d start using it in the coming year.
Of those that currently use it, 7.2 percent use it as a part of instruction frequently, and an additional 9.4 percent use it in instruction occasionally. I believe that is a relatively high adoption rate given the time that twitter has been in the market.
Depending on your particular academic sector you may also see appropriate uses for your students. I have opinions, but this week rather than taking the platform, I’d to see what everyone else thinks.
As well as Twitter, sites like Facebook often are used for school sites, events and groups. Possibly even course specific groups could be established and offer additional value.
In my blog this week, I’d like to pose three questions:
1)Does Twitter have a place in Education? If so, where and how do you think it could be used for maximum benefit.
2)What other social networking tools / sites do you feel most relevant in an academic environment?
3)Do you see value in blending Social Networking with eLearning in a learning management system (LMS)?
To establish context, please indicate which area of education you are referring to. i.e. Higher ED, K-12, Corporate etc.
I very much look forward to your thoughts.