Lomicka & Lord 2010 ACTFL presentation

1. Into the Twittersphere: Using
microblogging technology to build
community
Gillian Lord
(glord@ufl.edu)
Lara Lomicka
(lomicka@sc.edu)

2. Introduction: Discussion
• How many of you use Twitter?
• What are Twitter’s (or
microblogging’s) potential advantages
for use with classes?

3. Background - Microblogging
• What is microblogging?
– "a form of blogging that allows users to
write brief text updates (usually less than
200 characters) and publish them, either to
be viewed by anyone or by a restricted
group which can be chosen by the user"
(www.wikipedia.org)
• Popular microblogging tools:

4. Microblogging Tools

5. Background - Twitter
• What is ?
– A social networking and microblogging service that
enables its users to send and read messages known
as tweets.
– Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140
characters displayed on the author's profile page
and delivered to the author's subscribers
(followers).
– Senders can restrict delivery to those in their
circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.
– A service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate
and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent
answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

6. Twitter in FL learning and teaching
• Many overviews of what Twitter is and why educators
might benefit from it (i.e., Stevens 2008)
• Educators vouch for Twitter’s use in the classroom :
– Alan Haskvitz, “Twitter in the Classroom,” Reach Every Child
– Kate Messner, “Making a Case for Twitter in the
Classroom,” School Library Journal (December 1, 2009)
– National Education Association, “Can Tweeting Help Your
Teaching?” NEA Today Magazine (2009)
– Laura Walker, “Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools,” Tech &
Learning (April 16, 2009).

7. Twitter in FL learning and teaching
• Selected empirical studies
– Corbett, Mace & Regehr 2008
• Can be used to build community and support learning in the classroom
(engagement and social use)
• Perhaps not as effective at impacting learning
– Antenos-Conforti 2009
• Creates a virtual extension of the physical classroom
• Fostered strong sense of community; encouraged participation
– Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009a
• Instructional benefits include connecting classmates and instructor
– Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009b
• Encourage free-flowing just-in-time interactions and thus enhance social
presence in online courses
• Connect with a professional community of practice
Many claim Twitter can increase social presence, connectivity and
a sense of community, but few have set about to empirically and
systematically test these claims.

8. Our goals
1. Determine if Twitter participants
develop a sense of community through
this medium.
2. Discover how and why participants
interact via Twitter.

9. PROJECTS

10. Two contexts
• Twitter in two contexts
– Context 1: Intermediate French class
• 1 semester (fall 2009)
• Students tweeted among themselves and with
native French speakers
– Context 2: Foreign language teaching
methods class
• 1 semester (fall 2009)
• Teaching assistants tweeted among themselves
and with 80+ other TAs in the US and Canada

11. Intermediate French
• 4th semester French, university level
• 13 students (11 female, 2 male)
• Students tweeted 3x weekly for 9 weeks
– 2 tweets in the TL; 1 tweet in the NL
– Used common hashtag (#)
• Tweets represented status updates and
current happenings in their lives
• GOAL: build community among learners
in the US and in France; extend
learning outside of classroom

12. Intermediate French

13. Foreign Language Teaching Methods
• Graduate course for new language TAs
– At UF: 9 students (1 male, 8 female)
– Elsewhere: over 80 tweeters from US and Canada,
variety of backgrounds and institutions*
• Tweeted 3x weekly
– 2 original posts
– 1 @reply
– Used common hashtag (#FLTeach)
• GOAL: build community to share, reflect on
experiences as new teachers
*Tweets analyzed here are from 7 UF students who gave their permission
and 31 survey respondents (including those 7 UF students)

14. Student surveys
• Unique surveys used in each class
– Common aspects surveyed:
•Familiarity with Twitter prior to project
•Reactions to Twitter project
•Open-ended opinion questions
– Different aspects surveyed:
•Useful aspects of Twitter
•Frequency, purpose and content of
tweets

15. Content of tweets
• Content analysis
– Tweets examined
for evidence of
social presence1
– Percentages of
indicators that
were
• Affective
• Interactive
• Cohesive
1 Following Rourke et al. (2001) and Lomicka & Lord (2007)

16. SURVEY RESULTS
Intermediate French Class

17. Intermediate French class
• Had you heard of Twitter prior to this class?
– Yes = 13
– No = 0
• Did you already have a Twitter account?
– Yes = 3
– No = 10
• Are you comfortable using new technologies?
– Yes = 12
– No = 1

18. Intermediate French class
• Opinions on using Twitter pre/post
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Love idea Like it Neutral Do not like
it
Hate it
2
4 4
3
0
3
5
3
1 1
PRE-semester
POST-semester

19. Intermediate French class
• Advantages to using Twitter
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
being able to have delayed communication
being able to have instantaneous communication
using language with professor outside of class
following French students in Troyes
being able to reply to someone’s tweet
building community with classmates in 209 and in France
having a 140 character limit
being able to share information
using language with classmates outside of contact time
Features of Twitter useful in learning French
(# responses)

20. Intermediate French class
• Opinions on Twitter for learning French
language and culture

21. Intermediate French class
• Opinions on Twitter as a social tool

22. Intermediate French class
• Open-ended questions
– What did you like most about Twitter?
• Reading the French students’ tweets
• Knowing about the French students lives
• Relevant to real life language use
• Random comments were fun
• Could reply to others
• Helped feel more comfortable speaking
– What did you like least about Twitter?
• Using hashtags
• The word limit
• Sometimes feel like there is nothing to say

23. CONTENT ANALYSIS RESULTS
Intermediate French Class

24. Intermediate French class

25. Intermediate French class
Indicators Raw #s
Total tweets 623
Total indicators 1004
Total affective 346
Total interactive 276
Total cohesive 29
% affective % interactive % cohesive
Series1 34.46 27.49 2.89
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
70.00
80.00
90.00
100.00
Percentag
Indicators of Social Presence
(class 1)

26. SURVEY RESULTS
Teaching Methods Class

27. Teaching Methods class
• Institutions represented*
• University of Florida = 7
• University of South Carolina = 7
• University of North Carolina = 13
• Indiana University = 2
• Lakeridge Jr. High School (Orem, UT) = 1
• Missionary Training Center, Lone Peak High
School = 1
*Recall that over 80 participants were involved in the tweeting, but only 31 filled
out the final survey, through which permission to analyze data/tweets was
granted. Therefore, only these 31 survey responses are considered here. In the
content analysis, only the tweets of the 7 UF students who gave permission and
did not cancel their Twitter accounts were analyzed.

28. Teaching Methods class
• Languages taught
– Spanish = 25
– French = 2
– Italian = 2
– Portuguese = 1
– German = 1

29. Teaching Methods class
• Prior familiarity with Twitter
– Yes = 4*
– No = 27
*Of those 4, only two had Twitter accounts that they used
with any regularity.

30. Teaching Methods class
• Frequency of posts (out of 31 responses)
– Required 3x/week = 17
– 3-5x/week = 10
– More than 5x/week = 2
– Fewer than 3x/week = 2
• Frequency of replies (out of 30 responses)
– Required 1x/week = 13
– A few times/week = 12
– Several times/week = 1
– More often than that = 1

31. Teaching Methods class
• With whom did you connect most through your
tweets?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Instructors teaching
same language as me
Instructors at other
institutions
Instructors at my own
institution
Nobody Everyone equally

32. Teaching Methods class
• What were the main topics of your tweets?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Reaction to
my students
Getting new
ideas about
teaching
Reactions to
my textbook
Bonding What I was
learning as a
teacher
Frustration Happiness Emotional
response to
something
that
happened in
class
Response to
something
someone
else posted
Asking for
advice
Recounting
what
happened in
class

33. Teaching Methods class
• Opinions on using Twitter

34. Teaching Methods class
• Open-ended question
Is there anything else you would like to share with me about your
experiences with Twitter and/or your teaching methodology course
this semester?
– It was a really fantastic idea and a good experience for me as a first semester
teacher… I really hope it continues into next semester!
– It really helped all of the TA's bond and gave us a way to share our experiences and
encourage each other.
– I thought it was really helpful to read other people's tweets. Even if I didn't get
concrete support/suggestions/advice, it was really nice to know that everyone was
struggling with the same sort of things I was. It made me feel less alone.
– I think Twitter would have been more beneficial to my university if our professor cared
that we used it.
– It was great to be able to take the time to reflect.
– A lot of people wrote remarks about their classes that had absolutely no value for
other people to read. That gave me the feeling that I was spending time reading a lot
of text that I didn't learn from, or that didn't make me think new thoughts. I did get
one good idea from someone's tweet, though, that inspired me.
– I think using Twitter was less beneficial to me as a teacher than writing longer
reflections and actually thinking about what I was doing as a teacher. The 140
character limit does not lend itself to deep thought.

35. CONTENT ANALYSIS RESULTS
Teaching Methods Class

36. Teaching Methods class

37. Teaching Methods class
Indicators Raw #s
Total tweets 400
Total indicators 582
Total affective 185
Total interactive 329
Total cohesive 68
*Of the 400 tweets, a total of 71
(17.75%) were not coded as
indicating any type of social
presence. Others were coded with
more than one indicator.
% affective % interactive % cohesive
Series1 31.79 56.53 11.68
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
70.00
80.00
90.00
100.00
Percentage
Indicators of Social Presence
(class 2)

38. DISCUSSION

39. Attitudes and Opinions
Intermediate French
• Generally favorable
• Appreciative of
opportunity for
additional
communication
• Frustrated that the
French students tended
not to use twitter as
much as the Americans
Teaching Methods
• Generally favorable
• Appreciate community
• Frustrated with trying to
reflect in limited
characters

40. Participant interaction
Intermediate French
• More affective than
interactive
• Hardly any cohesive
Teaching Methods
• More interactive than
affective
• Some cohesive
• More cohesive indicators
than in the language
class

41. Conclusions
• Return to goals:
1. Sense of community?
» A sense of community was established
through the Twitter interactions but
differed in each class.
2. Participant interaction?
» Social interaction was demonstrated
largely through affective and interactive
indicators (in differing proportions in
the two classes, due to task demands
and population make-up), with fewer
indicators of cohesion.

42. Challenges
• Many useful features of Twitter were
not emphasized or used:
– Direct messages (d)
– Retweeting (RT)
• Following other tweeters should be
required for class projects
• Difficult to retrieve tweets for
research/analysis after the fact

43. Audience participation
• Questions?
• Have you used Twitter with your
classes? How? Was it successful?
• What do you use for community building
tools?

44. Selected references
• Antenos-Conforti, E. (2009). “Microblogging on Twitter: Social Networking in
Intermediate Italian Classes.” In L. Lomicka and G. Lord (Eds.), The Next Generation:
Social Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language Learning (pp. 59-90).
San Marcos, TX: Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium.
• Corbett, S., Mace, K. & Regehr, G. (2008). “Twitter in the online classroom: Case
study report.” Retrieved from
www.kevinmace.net/media/.../ED690_data_analysis_Twitter_Group.pdf.
• Dunlap, J., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009a). “ Instructional uses of Twitter.” In P. R.
Lowenthal, D. Thomas, A. Thai, & B. Yuhnke (Eds.), The CU Online handbook. Teach
differently: Create and collaborate (pp. 46-52). Raleigh, NC: Lulu Enterprises.
Retrieved from
http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Docum
ents/2009/Chapter_8.pdf
• Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009b). “Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to
enhance social presence.” Journal of Information Systems Education 20(2).
• Lomicka, L. & Lord, G. (2007). “Social presence in virtual communities of foreign
language teachers.” System 35, 208-228.
• Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social
presence in asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance
Education, 14, 51-70.
• Stevens, V. (2008). “Trial by Twitter: The rise and slide of the year’s most viral
microblogging platform.” TESL-EJ 12(1).