Weekly NDM Story ..

Universities should use Twitter to engage with students

http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/nov/22/universities-twitter-engage-with-students

Universities have started to believe that maybe using twitter to comunicate with their students is the best way to improve learning. A student claimed there had been an explosion of social media around his university. 

• According to recent research, 75% of students in Europe admit to using Twitter "all the time".
• 42% of under 20-year-olds use social media mainly to "stay up to date". 

#UCLChem160x is a hashtag that has been set up for a chemistry course at University College London (UCL) to share course information. Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at UCL says: "There's a real need to make sure that students remain engaged. Finding innovative ways to get students interested and connected is a crucial part of what I think teaching is becoming."

Twitter could be used as another method to reach students, to share content and provide information. The social nature of Twitter means you can ask questions, have conversations, and join discussions or debates. But an online community must be active to be successful. #UCLChem160x will need regular use if it is to benefit students.

• An economics undergraduate at the University of Plymouth says: "I might use the hashtag once or twice. It would be pretty helpful to quickly check my understanding, but I don't think I'd actively follow it."

However the students believe that twitter is very public which can put people off using it for university queries. If they have a question or comment using the hashtag, it wouldn't just be seen by those following the tag, it would also be seen by all their followers. "I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable discussing any queries or academic difficulties on social media. It forms a personal record that can be used to define you," says a history of medicine postgraduate student at UCL. 

A biochemistry student at the University of Manchester says: "Using social media in education is brilliant. We have lots of Facebook groups set up for courses at my university, usually by students. "They give much quicker responses than posting on discussion boards, as people tend to check social media more regularly. And students can help each other so you don't have to wait for a lecturer to respond, which can take a while." "Twitter would make it easier to stay involved with my course as I go on it everyday. I'd love to see deadline reminders on there," says a geography student at Kings College London. 

Questioning and debating teaches us to think critically – a key skill no matter what you're studying – and online debate is a way to develop these skills. Hashtags create online communities where you can discuss a topic with your friends so I believe this is a really successful way of improving education.