The document discusses how Twitter has become an important platform for conducting "vigorous multidimensional conversations" among professionals in various fields including business ethics. It notes that within specialized communities on Twitter, credible experts curate information on important issues in their field through retweets. In contrast to one-way information searches, Twitter allows participants to actively engage in ongoing discussions within their virtual professional networks. The author has used Twitter to facilitate discussions about CSR/sustainability topics outside of class, to provide up-to-date materials and ideas to students. Student responses have been mixed, with some actively engaging while others prefer not to use social media.

1. Learning through doing –
sage on the stage or guide at the side
in the information revolution?

2.  “A lot has changed since 2005. For one, the
ethics blogosphere is more crowded — or should I
say, more fruitful — than it was 6 years ago. The
business-ethics blogosphere now includes blogs
by ethics/CSR professors… as well as blogs by
profs from neighbouring fields... It also includes
journalists … consultants. And, significantly, the
ethics/CSR blogosphere is now knitted together,
you might say, by a vigorous multidimensional
Twitter conversation.”
 Chris McDonald, http://businessethicsblog.com,
20 November 2011

3.  Twitter allows you to broadcast and receive
messages – called tweets – on your computer or
mobile phone of 140 characters or less
 All those who ‘follow’ you can see your
messages, and you receive messages from all
those whom you follow in a permanent feed or
‘timeline’. This forms an ongoing ‘conversation’
 Twitter is a public forum, any tweet you make
becomes public and can be read by anyone,
even if they do not ‘follow’ you – they can join
your ‘conversation’ at any time, but followers
receive a feed of anything you do tweet, while
non-followers may pick up your tweets through
specific searches

4.  Twitter has gained a bad reputation based on the
misunderstanding that all messages are
‘stupefyingly trivial’, fed by the ‘celebrity age’
in which the famous tweet on what they just ate
for breakfast or what bash they are attending
that evening, to adoring, vacant fans.
 Also, people frequently raise the objection that
nothing worth saying can be said in 140
characters
 This is a considerable distance from Chris
McDonald’s community of professionals, experts
and enthusiasts “knitted together… by a vigorous
multidimensional conversation”

5.  The true value of Twitter is cumulative and community-based.
In much the same way that one goes to conferences and
networks, one does it instead virtually with peers in one’s
own field who would not necessarily be reachable in any
other way.
 Rather than scroll through endless newspaper articles or
Google searches for up-to-date information and items in one’s
specialist area, it is all available in one source within a
community that basically peer-reviews itself for credibility.
 Those who have nothing credible or useful to say in their own
field either do not get followed, or do not get ‘retweeted’ –
this is the compliment that you tweet something, and
someone else finds it sufficiently interesting to ‘retweet’ it –
ie send it on to their followers.
 It is very heartening when someone else’s ‘follower’ contacts
you over an item you tweeted to begin with. You feel part of
something much bigger than – a ‘knitted’ community of
shared interests.

6.  To illustrate the relevance to modern business of
CSR/sustainability for undergraduate and post-
graduate students in Brunel Business School
 To evidence the diversity of CSR/sustainability issues
– in effect, most business issues contain such an
element
 To set out KEY issues – the fact I have chosen to
‘retweet’ an item means I know from experience it is
significant, capturing the ‘tenor’ of this community
 To set up-to-date personal study work, videos, news
items, blogs and so on, for discussion in class
 140 characters turns out to be an EXCELLENT
discipline to capture the core of an issue in a
digestible way
 To pump-prime student dissertation ideas

7.  Follow me on Twitter.
 But they don’t have to, as via the #hashtag, all
tweets related to my modules feed through to
Blackboard for non-followers.
 ‘Actively’ or ‘constructively’ engage with the
materials, as these are usually current news (or
academic) items relevant to the conceptual
areas we are covering in class.
 At the start of class, I go through the week’s
feed for discussion. Storify is useful for this.
 If I have set a theme for them to consider in-
depth, I set up a discussion section on
Blackboard… however this is rarely used So we
start class with a discussion on it.

8.  POSITIVES
 Some boast to their friends about their ‘cool’ lecturer who
tweets.
 A core of students will use it to communicate with me about with
questions on the modules, or to discuss or send me news items,
they are thrilled if I retweet them. This can lead to extended
conversations.
 To make fun of me, eg I post a lot of current materials and
inform students via Twitter of what is up on Blackboard, one
student has made some very amusing posts this year.
 LESS POSITIVE
 ‘I work as well as study and don’t have time for social media’.
 ‘I signed up to Twitter for this’ on little-used lecturer accounts.
 They rarely engage with the discussion section I direct them to.
 Thy may use it to actually complain (not necessarily a negative!),
eg H001 was freezing which made it onto Twitter. Also for late
release of grades or anything else they are unhappy about.

9.  Is Twitter or even flipped learning correct for
all countries and cultures? EG is there a
Chinese equivalent we should be using, and
is a flipped environment too challenging for
eg high power distance cultures?
 Does this do anything to address the ‘tail
end’ of under-achievers? This is a potential
considerable benefit of flipped teaching.
 Beware of seeing this as a substitute for
face-to-face contact, effort must be put into
Twitter to develop relationships both with
peers and with students.