Could microblogging and a twitter-like application take precedence over email?
In an educational setting, especially in online classes, communication between the instructor and their students is common place. Students get regular email updates and reminders to start projects, submit assignments, and a variety of other short messages and updates.
Though I made the switch from a typical cell phone to a smart phone and now practically live in my email inbox, not everyone is the same way. Some even go days between checking their email. But an application such as Twitter could provide a way for instructors to be able to get information to their students in a quick and effective way.
Short messages such as ‘Don’t forget to submit your paper by 11:59 tonight!’ could be received instantaneously by an entire class of individuals, and it omits the need for a computer to do so. An instructor can easily send out the message from their cell phone, and all students can receive it just as easily as they receive any other SMS message.
It’s a technology that instructors should consider facilitating as another method of communication with their students, especially in online settings. It’s so easy to get lost in the sea of deadlines, so short little text reminders could be a great way to keep students on track.
Week One: Spending Time with John Keller
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This week’s required readings got us off to a roaring start by plunging us
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13 years ago
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3 Responses to “Microblogging over E-mail?”
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Good suggestion! Indeed that short message is a very convinient method to interact between instructors and students. However, I think maybe it's not appropriate for all instroctors. It should depend on the number of their students. For example, if the professor has only 3 students this semester, the short message is probablly a better way to use. But if there are more than a hundred students for the professor, it might not be a small amount of money for the professor to send text messages every due time to every student. There may be some more protential problems than using emails.
Okay, I begin to see some value to Twitter. Quick meaningful communications between groups of follows for planning and organizing purposes. I like the idea of using Twitter to remind teams or groups of important deadlines and events.
Even though there is value to the short messages I still feel as though these could act as a tease to student if they have substantial questions that they need answered. There is no question that it could be useful, my biggest concern would be: how many technological portals are we going to open for education's sake? It will be impossible for everyone to be on the same page!
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