To Tweet Or Not To Tweet: Is That Really The Question?

Abstract

This research consists of a longitudinal study conducted with students on computer science courses to investigate whether Twitter can be an effective tool for use in teaching computer science in higher education. The inspiration for this work is fuelled by the differing anecdotal opinions of colleagues, together with the recent surge of popular interest in Twitter as a micro-blogging tool, especially in education. The aims of this work are to analyse the Twitter usage habits of computer science students, specifically, how they use Twitter to enter and engage in dialogue, and the issues that might arise from this. This research focuses specifically on the conceivable possibilities presented by Twitter for use as a teaching and learning tool.

Initially, a survey was conducted to gather a breadth of the data on usage habits. This was followed by data mining on Twitter that consisted of harvesting behavioural data from the micro-blogging platform over a period of 3 years. The initial results presented in this work point to the potential of using Twitter as a pedagogy tool. Some downfalls are also highlighted such as Twitter’s conceivable role as a distractor. Results suggests that it is still too early to determine whether Twitter can be an effective pedagogical tool, nonetheless, the scope for future work points towards many possibilities for further research and application.