Using Twitter to teach is a great way to increase engagement of students.

1. Twitter:
Micro-blogging to Increase
Engagement
Cheryl Boncuore, PhD
Academic Director of Distance Learning
Kendall College
Aurora Dawn Reinke
Program Director, School of Business
Kendall College

2. ABOUT US
Cheryl Boncuore, PhD
Academic Director of Distance Learning
Kendall College
cheryl.boncuore@kendall.edu
Blackboard administrator and instructor for over 12 years.
•manage Center for Teaching and Learning
•active member of our Assessment Academy and Dean’s team
•teach for the General Education program – online and on ground.

3. ABOUT US
Aurora Reinke
Program Director, School of Business
Kendall College
aurora.reinke@kendall.edu
I have used Blackboard for 5 years.
•taught 23 different courses in the business program
•pursuing DBA, focus is corporate sustainability & social responsibility
•spent 15 years in the software development biz

4. ABOUT KENDALL COLLEGE
• Since 1934
• Small urban institution in Chicago
• Subsidiary of Laureate International
Universities global network
• Offers specialized fields of study:
• School of Business
• School of Culinary Art
• School of Education
• School of Hospitality Management

5. KENDALL COLLEGE MISSION
Kendall College cultivates students’
passions into rewarding professions
through rigorous learning experiences in
the classroom, local communities, and the
world.

6. WHAT WE ARE GOING
TO LEARN TODAY
• How Twitter was implemented at Kendall as a
teaching tool
• Reactions to using Twitter as a teaching tool
• How you can do it in your class
#teachwithtwitter

7. OUR CHALLENGE:
INCREASE RETENTION
2013 Institution Theme:
Engagement
Student to Student
Student to Faculty
Student to Greater Community

8. DEFINING ENGAGEMENT
• Connecting all institutional constituents to the activities of learning,
discovery, and the academic topics of study.
• Every class must explore beyond the institution’s walls to enhance
learning experiences because these wider learning experiences can
be found throughout the community (Fitzgerald et al. 2012).
• Fits the mission of Kendall College, which encourages that learning
experiences occur “in the classroom, local communities, and the
world”.
Greater Engagement Leads to Greater Retention

9. OUR SOLUTION
Created the Twitter Experiment
• Allowed the use of social media in classes and beyond
• Tied to institutional mission
• Tied to programmatic learning outcomes
• Tied to class objectives

10. OUR SOLUTION
276 students…
13 hashtags…
10 professors…

11. OUR SOLUTION
Twitter is:
•A great way to prompt students to do research
•A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry
•A great way to engage students & faculty
•A great way to affirm student knowledge

12. OUR SOLUTION
Student responses to using
Twitter for a class.

13. OUR SOLUTION
Twitter is NOT:
•PRIVATE
•A way for instructors to STALK students
•A home work reminder tool!

14. OUR SOLUTION

15. OUR RESULTS
#deepdive #results from one class in our study: #kccap
65 students from 3 academic programs
2-quarter project to develop mixed-used property biz plan
Class meets once per week in workshop/coaching format
Twitter assignment: vague, related to “participation”

16. REMEMBER
OUR SOLUTION
Twitter is:
•A great way to prompt students to do research
•A great way to connect with thought leaders in any industry
•A great way to engage students & faculty
•A great way to affirm student knowledge

17. OUR RESULTS
A great way to prompt students to do research:

18. OUR RESULTS
A great way to connect
with thought leaders in
any industry

19. OUR RESULTS
A great way to connect
with thought leaders in
any industry

20. OUR RESULTS
A great way to engage students & faculty

21. OUR RESULTS
A great way to affirm student knowledge

22. OUR RESULTS
A great way to affirm student knowledge:
•Followers
•Retweet
•Favorited
•Response/Reply
•Start a Hashtag Trend

23. OUR RESULTS
BONUS

24. OUR RESULTS
Tweets with #kccap

25. HERE’S HOW WE
USED BLACKBOARD
Common tool to capture course related
information
• Used a simple “widget”
• Created a Twitterfeed button
• Students could see peer tweets
• Bb issues: different browsers
responded to different widgets
differently

26. USEFUL TOOLS:
BIT.LY

27. USEFUL TOOLS:
HOOTSUITE

28. USEFUL TOOLS:
TWITONOMY

29. TECHNICAL ISSUES
• Twitonomy data available only 9 days (Twitter
restriction)
• Twitter searches did not return all possible data
• Tweets not showing up at first
• Twitter alters code
• Data analysis

30. LESSONS LEARNED
Not if, but when we do this again:
•More training for everyone, e.g. hashtag/mention use,
•Help students understand why Twitter; be clearer on
assignment layout
•Don’t assume all Gen Y students are tech savvy or on SM
(most use Facebook, but prefer personal usage only)
•Students were afraid of doing it “wrong” based on “multiple
choice mentality”
•For us, better balance quantifiable pieces with softer side

31. DO THIS NEXT
TRY integrating twitter into your class:
Twitter Assignment 1: Hashtag, you’re it!
• Current Event searches
Twitter Assignment 2: Follow You, Follow Me
• Making connections to industry leaders
Twitter Assignment 3: Tweet That, Tweety Bird!
• Sharing ideas with others

32. RESOURCES
Boncuore, C. (2011). Connecting pedagogy with technology: An online workshop for campus faculty development.(Doctoral
dissertation). ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2011.
Chickering, A. & Ehrmann, S. C. (1996), Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. Retrieved from
http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html
Chickering, A. W. & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin (39)7
Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
Dahlstrom, E. (2012). ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2012 (pp. 1–38). EDUCAUSE Center
for Applied Research. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1208/ERS1208.pdf
Fitzgerald, H. E., Bruns, K., Sonka, S. T., Furco, A., & Swanson, L. (2012). The centrality of engagement in higher education.
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16(3), 7-27.
Greenhow, C. & Gleason, B. (2012). Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literacy Practice, The Educational Forum, 76:4, 464-478
Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student
engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162–171. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004
Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of
Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119–132. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x
Kruger-Ross, M., Waters, R., & Farwell, T. (2013). Everyone’s all a-twitter about Twitter. In Using Social Media Effectively in the
Classroom (pp. 171–131). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sinnappan, S., & Zutshi, S. (2013). A framework to enrich student interaction via cross-institutional microblogging. In Using
Social Media Effectively in the Classroom (pp. 147–166). New York, NY: Routledge
White, J., Carey, L. & Dailey, K. (2001). Web-based instrumentation in educational survey research. WebNet Journal: Internet
Technologies, Applications & Issues. 3 (1), pp. 46-50. Norfolk, VA: AACE.

33. THANK YOU!
Follow Us!
Cheryl Boncuore, PhD
@cherylbonc
Aurora Dawn Reinke
@AuroraReinke
If you would like to provide feedback for this session please email:
BbWorldFeedback@blackboard.com
The title of this session is: [Twitter: Micro-blogging to Increase
Engagement]