Microblogs in Higher Education – A chance to facilitate informal and process-oriented learning?

Microblogs in higher education is something that I actually have some experience in. I found the results of the study actually mirrored my own experience with Twitter. IT566 was actually the reason not only for me to create this blog but create a twitter account, something I was not a fan of doing. I understood completely when the article referred to information overload to those not familiar with the format of microblogging. I think this article has a lot to do with the previous article. As I discussed in the previous post I feel lurking has beneficial educational results. Being new to Twitter I spent a lot of time reading others post and not posting myself but learning a great deal from what they had tweeted. Later I joined in and as I became more familiar with the medium the number of my posts increased. The data from this study mirrors that experience. The concept of microblogging in an educational format is fascinating as I hated the idea of tweeting but in practice found that it was indispensable for me to complete the coursework. This is compounded by the fact that my particular class was completely online. Without the ability to quickly communicate thoughts and problems with other students or see solutions to problems i had not run into yet the class would have been almost impossible. The blogs allowed us to post our work but the microblog allowed us to discuss that work in a concise direct way or even just vent frustration or share epiphanies. I think the key however to using microblogging is exposure. The biggest hurdle I see to using it in class is a lack a familiarity students have with it since it is so different, but maybe that was just me.