Mobile microblogging and the student experience: a study in 140 characters (or less)

0018 ALTC 2009 Joanne Badge, Alan Cann, Alex Moseley, Stuart Johnson

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Alan Cann, Jo Badge, Stuart Johnson, Alex Moseley, University Leicester
Had 10 ipod touches, bough through JISC TechDis Heat 3 Scheme
Biological Sciences undergrads (7) and Museum Studies postgrads (8, 21-41 years old, second term of first year course already established at university)
Gave each group a specific hashtag, then picked up with rss feed. used google reader to archive them
Asked to send 4 tweets per day over a 4 week period.
'Just tell us what you are studying and where' and gave examples, but students went beyond that
They weren't just using ipod touches but variety of platforms. Also talked about what thinking and feeling
Undergrad tweets: Example of tweets and wordle of their tweets ('now' and 'going' big talk)
1000 tweets in 4 weeks. Did network analysis of relationships of @replies, big diagram
4 staff involved, all on twitter, told students they were there, created separate accounts
Peer support, not just social grooming, spike when assessment.
Postgraduate tweets. Already had peer support network. Wordle - 'library', 'reading', 'meeting', 'project' big. Used a lot to talk to their tutor. Lots of setting up of meetings, administration, lots of that directed at the tutor.
Percentage of @ replies as total, number of tweets less (about 700 over 4 week period), most @ replies directed at the tutor, not really conversational