Est. March 2006 Population7,038,000 Age Group35-49 Twitterati10% of population=90% of tweets A nice place to visit60% leave within 1 st month

Professor of Italian at Montclair State iVenus – Apr 2007 profeac – Jan 2008 profenza – Jan 2009 Students have used Twitter in ITAL103 (Intermediate) Grammar & Composition (Advanced) Cultural Studies (in English)

Text-based posts only 140 character message size constraint Community members include “friends” (people you choose to follow) and “followers” (people who follow you) Public or private participation allowed

The Town Square = the Timeline The last thing you micro-blogged: a.k.a. a tweet Where you update/ tweet Town water cooler = Popular topics Town water cooler = Popular topics

What benefits will students and/or teachers perceive with this type of social network? What disadvantages? Raise your hand Or chat

Tweets are a source of information; people in certain places, at certain events, sharing at a global level How is this applicable to the foreign language classroom? What would you communicate to your students in 140 characters or less? Use the hashtag - #larc09

Create groupings by adding context and metadata

feature was introduced because we noticed lots of folks putting symbol in front of Twitter usernames as a way of addressing one another. For what are you drinking in your avatar? (It's a soy also now in the middle of tweets as a way to simply reference another account

Sharing and crediting sources

They can: be engaged in either synchronous or asynchronous modes of communication (always on, always connected) interact with individuals or community members in the L2 participate in the virtual classroom and in the L2 culture

Twitterers can: micro-blog about what they are doing (learner written output) read what others are doing (learner’s comprehensible input) communicate directly with someone they are following (negotiation of meaning)

Create a Twitter handle for academic use only Use class time to have students create their handle, follow classmates and tweet for the first time Prompt them initially to have them feel comfortable with tweeting Develop your best practices for course objectives

Follow a Professional Follow a Famous Person Grammar Rule Based Writing Maximizing the Teaching Moment Public Note Pad Writing Assignment Class chatter Classroom community Get a Sense of the World Track a Word Track a Conference Instant Feedback Source: AcademHack

Twitter is self-perpetuating and generative School22.3 % Entertainment13.6 % Feelings13.6 % Food12.1 % Hobby8.0 % Family4.9 % Home4.4 % Friends4.1 % American life3.9 % Events3.6 % Unexpected uses of Twitter: bulletin board, requesting information and help in an academic context (e.g., looking for misplaced textbooks and handouts, asking about deadlines for assignments) technology-related matters, (e.g., how do I tweet from my cell? how do I personalize my Twitter homepage like you did?) Students tweeted rather than ed the instructor with questions

Twitter can transform social networking to educational networking. Twitter helped reduce affective filters. Learners stated that twittering had them asking for more information and allowed them to clarify using the L2.

What would you communicate to your students in 140 characters or less? What prompts would you use? Use the hashtag - #larc09

There are many different applications that can enhance your visit to Twitter Town