Meeting Them Where They Live: Using Twitter SMS To Connect With Students A Research Study

Who we are Jackie Krause, Assistant Professor Julie Bonner, Assistant Professor Laura Portolese, Associate Professor

What we intend to present A brief review of our research study, including background, methodology, results, and discussions Demonstrate how SMS Twitter was used Discuss possible implications moving forward What has been your own experiences using Twitter in class?

Do you struggle to reach your students in your online courses? We know they don’t read email or course announcements

Background A Bowling Green University study (2016) of 315 students found the following: 85 percent of students said they check their university email every day, and if they find a message from a faculty member, they are highly likely to read it. Only 11% said they rarely or never open email. 39% said they don’t read email from advisors and 54% said they don’t read email from academic departments

Background The study continued examining students use of social media: Business, communication, and journalism majors indicated at 56% that they use social media as a primary communication method, where only 30% of students indicated the same in other majors Communication preferences for all students: texting – 50%, social media – 35%, email – 12%, and phone calls – 2%

Background A Canadian study (2014) of 311 of community college students regarding their preferences of faculty use of information communication technologies found: Students appreciated the use of PowerPoint and videos in F-2-F classes Did not like faculty use of digital textbooks, online courses, collaborative work online, discussion forums, blogs, chat rooms, instant messaging, and all forms of communication using social networking when used by faculty (e.g., Facebook).

Background A 2013 qualitative study of the use of mobile devices and smart phones found students felt both advantages and frustrations using these devices. Students appreciated the convenience of the devices but struggled with the small screens. A 2015 study of the required use of Twitter in a graduate class reported positive responses. Students appreciated immediate and frequent course information, mentoring, updates on assignments, additional information outside of the class material.

So what are students really saying? They don’t want to hear from us? Is it about the directionality of the message? Students want to initiate the conversation and not vice-versa. Is it about Just In Time messages; what they want to know at the time they want to know it? Is it information overload? There is just too much coming at them to keep up. Is it competing priorities or external influences, social media for example? These are questions that plague online instructors as we try to reach students

Meet them where they live! We decided to try and see if we could make a difference in reaching students by connecting with them where they live, on their smart phones!

Our Research Using SMS Twitter, we encouraged students to follow their instructor for the term The instructor sent tweets throughout the term on various topics At the end of the term, five questions were added to the SEOIs to gather data.

Let’s give it a try! To demonstrate what we mean by SMS Twitter, let’s all try something. Grab your cell phones and send a text message to 40404 with a message that reads Follow DrJackieK SMS Twitter Follow information: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170004

Hootsuite is my friend! Using Hootsuite, I will send a message via my DrJackieK twitter account. I especially like that I can schedule these tweets OK, did you all get the tweet?

The Research Question and Study Design Research Question-What are student attitudes and perceptions of the use of SMS Twitter posts in online and hybrid courses? Study Design- Instructor used Hootsuite to schedule and send Tweets from Prof_DrJackie Four undergraduate project management classes were sampled, one hybrid and three fully online. Five questions were added to the end of term student course surveys.

Demographics Spring 2016

Results Q1 - Did you follow your instructor using SMS Twitter?

Results Q2 - Did you find the Tweets Useful?

Results Q3- What Tweets were most useful?

Results Q4 – What additional information would you want to see Tweeted?

Results Q5 - Did the Tweets help me feel connected and informed?

So, what about transactional value? WIIFM Why should I do this? What will I gain? What if we assign a small extra credit point value? Will this impact our results?

Demographics Fall 2017 Number of Students in Class Number of Students that Followed via SMS Twitter Response Rate ADMG 374 - Hybrid 30 25 83% ADMG 373 - Hybrid 14 12 86% ADMG 474 Online 18 78% IT 376 - Online 6 50% Totals 74 57 77%

Discussion Students may not want to use social media for classes because they wanted to keep separation between their “personal life” and school life. Agreement Disagreement ? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096751613000262

Discussion Perhaps the students do not have the self-regulation skills to see the need for social media in their classrooms: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109675161100 0467 SMS Twitter tends to be one-way communication between the faculty and the student, the student finds it like another “lecture” or “announcement” and doesn’t see value in it. Again, WIIFM

Discussion Twitter can enhance social presence online: so in order for it to be useful, we need to “require” students to participate, as we do with other social presence activities such as discussion board posts. https://search.proquest.com/openview/67efa00ea8745e5237a3a3e3 9ce50436/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=25848 Finally, maybe Twitter is “old news”. Students are more interested in tools such as SnapChat or Instagram. https://www.statista.com/statistics/192703/age-distribution-of-users- on-twitter-in-the-united-states/

Final Thoughts and Recommendations It was suggested that we simply ask students WHY they did not participate in using SMS Twitter. Great question! This was potentially disproven with the “extra credit” for the Fall term.

Now, what have you tried? So, have you tried similar techniques using Twitter/SMS Twitter in your online classrooms? What has been your experience?

References Bista, K. (2015). Is Twitter a Pedagogical Tool in Higher Education? Perspectives of Education Graduate Students. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(2), 83. doi:10.14434/josotl.v15i2.12825 Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social Presence. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 125-139. Fichten, C. S., King, L., Jorgensen, M., Nguyen, M. N., Budd, J., Havel, A., … Asuncion, J. (2015). What Do College Students Really Want When It Comes to Their Instructors' Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Their Teaching? International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 14(2), 173-191. Gikas, J., & Grant, M. M. (2013). Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media. The Internet and Higher Education, 19, 18-26. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.06.002 Straumsheim, C. (2016, March 2). Study explores impact of social media, texting on email use. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/02/study-explores-impact-social-media-texting-email-use

Questions? Jackie Krause (Jaclyn.Krause@cwu.edu) Laura Portolese (Laura.Portolese@cwu.edu) Julie Bonner (Julie.Bonner@cwu.edu)