As I sit here today and write this essay about the importance of digital writing, it seems almost silly to even question. I’m writing on a laptop, while I simultaneously research sources online only to post it online to our class blog at the finish. College students of today, like myself, rely on digital devices for our news, homework, entertainment and communication. It can be overwhelming to think of how reliant we are on screens, but this essay is not a rant on technology. This is a celebration and study on how the integration of technology into classrooms is proven to make connections and engage students in a new way. Before we get ahead of ourselves to a world of digital takeover, let’s look at the evidence that supports pragmatic uses of social media and digital means in the classroom.
The textbook, Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning, is the first of its kind to explore this field. The chapters vary in scope and for the purposes of this essay; I have studied chapters “Tweet Me a Story” and “Sister Classrooms: Blogging across Disciplines and Campuses.” “Tweet Me a Story,” describes how the micro-blogging platform of Twitter can be useful in an academic setting. “Sister Classrooms” defines how blogging can be best integrated into classrooms and how this provides a new sphere of class engagement. I have found other peer-reviewed sources that enhance and compliment these chapters. A Swedish teacher noted in his study of social media as a teaching tool that, the “multimodality in social media also brings the possibility of experiencing variation in the learning situation in the school and at home, both in terms of the way you can produce the content and in the way you communicate it” (Akerlund, 4). There is a line between using social media at home and school students must be taught how to use social media in an educational context (Abe and Jordan, 18). This essay will inquire on how to define that line, especially related to the platforms of blogging and Twitter.
First, let’s delve into the world of Twitter. Why is Twitter a helpful learning tool? The textbook I reference theorizes that engaging in Twitter teaches students a new way of voicing their ideas. Because each tweet is limited to 140 characters, it requires thoughtful, short and sweet writing. “You have to focus on the key point for a good tweet,” notes Leigh Wright, the author of “Tweet Me a Story” (Wright, 9). While long prose and theses are still relevant in academia, tweets are also powerful tools of teaching how to write well. Wright found many successful ways to integrate Twitter into her pedagogy. She instructed her students to set up a Twitter account solely for class purposes and monitored the class’s tweets via hashtags specific to the class. She found that using Twitter was an influential way to engage students in ways she hadn’t before. The article “Integrating Social Media into the Classroom Curriculum” supports her findings. Using social media platforms provides a way for educators to speak to students in a way they are likely to be reached and the majority of student perceptions regarding this integration is positive (17). Now, instead of checking Twitter as a means to escape homework assignments, students utilize it as a part of their learning. This speaks to students on a personal level and shows us that teachers are committed to adapt to changing times. According to Paige and Jordan, we millennials are “tech savvy, have short attention spans, and multitask on everything” (17). Tweeting in the classroom perfectly speaks our language.
Social media in the classroom excites students and lights a spark of creativity in us. Showing blogs, twitter feeds, and videos can really spice up and elevate a lecture to stir our attention. Wright assigned her to students to live-tweet a school basketball game and found that they took the assignment in all different directions. Some focused on the game itself; the score, the key players etc., while others ended up tweeting about the fashion of the students in attendance. The unexpected freedom of the assignment created a colorful class twitter feed (Wright, 18). Personally speaking, I know that many students feel restrained by academic essays: a Twitter handle is one way to quell this restraint. Wright has developed other Twitter assignments and used it as a cornerstone of her teaching methods. Wright’s examples show that Twitter is a new tool to encourage peer feedback and interaction, like how she asked her scriptwriting class to write dialogue back and forth on Twitter (38). This not only fosters community in the classroom, but also helps student think on their feet, an important skill in today’s instantaneous society.
Lastly, Twitter helps writers to hone in their craft. Because of the limited characters, you have to develop a unique style and tone. Twitter is a fresh way to find one’s voice as a writer. One could develop a sassier tone, a la the Twitter of Lena Dunham, or a journalistic tone like that of Anderson Cooper.
Twitter is a way to keep the teaching of writing fresh and relevant to the tools of society. “By using tools such as Twitter and Storify, we can embrace the twist of technology by giving students the tools to develop their voice, tone, and unique writing style” (Wright,44). Twitter is a new way to teach writing through writing.
Next, let’s turn to the world of blogging. “Blogging across Sister Classrooms” describes a unique approach to utilizing the blogosphere in college classes. First, it considers why blogs are powerful teaching tools. Hagood and Price argue that asking a student to blog is a way that “invites students to learn through writing” (Hagood & Price, 3). When a student writes a blog, they feel less pressure to be entirely perfect. The authors note that “the relative freedom of a blog post may also encourage students to take intellectual risks that feel less possible in the high-stakes, rigorously evaluated context of a formal paper” (5). Blogs are spaces where students develop their digital writing style and articulate ideas. I believe this happens more fluidly on a blog because blogging is fun. We students associate blogs with leisurely reading and it therefore produces a different type of writing than we would normally produce in an academic setting. Blogs are a format where students can bring in other sources like websites and tweets and comment directly on them. Additionally, asking a student to blog gives them more time to formulate a response to something than in during a class discussion (5).
Blogs are also a new form of collaboration. Class blogs are collaborative documents. In our class, I have really benefitted from the feedback and comments I receive from my peers. Some courses come and go without ever engaging peers to give feedback on others’ work, but a class blog ensures that will never occur. A recent study found that using blogs in a classroom setting “allows students to gain a sense of empowerment and personal identity while learning how to interact with other’s online” (Courts, Bari, and Tucker, 124). The practice of blogging resonates with today’s students because it is instantaneous, like much of social media. Blogs create a space for students to give and receive peer feedback and affirmation of ideas immediately.
Now, let’s back this up with some real-world examples. Our class is fortunate to be one of the first on our campus to solely focus on digital writing and the integration of the digital world into our classroom. Personally, I have some amateur experience with tweeting and blogging for an audience other than myself. Over the summer, I worked as a student tour guide and was asked to also tweet for the Dickinson admissions office to offer a behind the scenes look at my life here. I have had a personal Twitter account for a few years, which as of late is overrun by an obscene amount of Parks and Rec references.
Creating my Dickinson “professional” (ha) twitter account provided some challenges at first. My tweets read as boring to me. I haven’t yet found the balance between informative and witty.
The Chronicle of Higher Education created a list of Ten Twitter Commandments that all tweeters should abide by. It’s a good list that all should read, especially those tweeting in an academic setting. It provides advice like “it’s okay to crack jokes” and “don’t just make statements, ask questions too.” These are good things to keep in mind as I continue to strive to find my Twitter voice.
Although this hasn’t quite taken shape on my Twitter account, it has helped me be more critical and conscience of the web content I read. Every morning I check Instagram, Facebook and Twitter before I even get out of bed. However, after studying these platforms, I have found myself a little bored by what I’m reading. This class has opened my eyes to not only what I want to sound like on the web, but honed in what I like to read online as well. Creating a distinct online voice can take time; it’s like a fine wine. Takes practice and time to refine.
Like most students at Dickinson, I have the opportunity to go abroad as a student here. I have just recently been accepted to study in Yaoundé, Cameroon for five months. Now I have never been to Africa (yet), but I have heard from friends who also studied there, that the best way to keep in touch with friends and family is through a blog. I will have to severe my ties with my iPhone and morning ritual because chances are my host family’s home will not have Internet. I see this as a golden opportunity. Instead of constant updates, I will have the chance to carefully reflect on my experience and craft thoughtful blog posts. I plan on taking as many pictures as possible and include those on my blog. This class has taught me the power of editing of posts, previewing how they look on a page and helped me develop a more distinct and consistent voice. I look forward to see how that carries over into my Cameroon blog and the feedback I will get from my family and friends. Who knows, maybe friends from this class will read it as well (right, guys?). This blog will not only be a fantastic way to keep in touch with back home but is also a way for me to synthesize and look back on my time there. Blogs take diaries to a whole new level. I can’t predict the future of the Internet but I am assuming that blogs will be longevous. These writings will be a way for me to look back on my time abroad for years to come.
Much like going abroad, Dickinson students have a myriad of opportunities at our fingertips. No student here can be pigeonholed as one way or another. We can be farmers, debaters, athletes, Fulbright scholars, actors and the list goes on. Students with interests as vast as those I’ve met at Dickinson go on to have extremely diverse careers. In this day and age, having experience with digital writing will get us ahead in the job market. It’s imperative that we have this skillset as we go out into the “real world.” We have to know how to tweet, how to blog, how to gain recognition and “likes” on Facebook accounts. These know-hows are expected of our generation. Like it or not, it makes absolute sense that these platforms are now integrated directly into the classroom and woven in with our research of books and writing of papers. After researching this topic and seen how successful it can be to teach writing and communication firsthand, it seems crazy to me that there aren’t more classes at Dickinson that focus on digital writing. I hope in the future to take part of, and to see, a stronger focus on these skills in the liberal arts world. It is the way of the future.
Dear Reader,
Click on the tweets to expand read. Not sure why they showed up so small.
Works Cited:
Abe, Paige, and Nickolas A. Jordan. “Integrating Social Media into the Classroom Curriculum.” About Campus 18.1 (2013): 16-20. ERIC. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.
Akerlund, Dan. “Social Media In the Classrom.” . Karlstads universitet, n.d. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://klassbloggarna.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Åkerlund-Dan-2011-Social-media-in-the-classroom-Tönsberg.pdf>.
Courts, Bari, and Jan Tucker. “Using Technology To Create A Dynamic Classroom Experience.” Journal Of College Teaching & Learning 9.2 (2012): 121-127. Education Research Complete. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.
Gulliver, Katrina. “10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 09 May 2012. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/>.
Hagood, Amanda, and Carmel Price. “Sister Classrooms: Blogging Across Disciplines and Campuses.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Michigan Publishing, 15 Sep 2013. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/communities/hagood-price-2013/>.
Wright, Leigh. “Tweet Me a Story .” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Michigan Publishing, 15 Sepember 2013. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/engagement/wright-2013/>.