That old familiar tweet…

tuit twiittini

Tweetjeim Твитт

I’m Enza, twitterize me & you get iVenus. My pointless babble, conversations and news are about technology and books, based on circumstantial evidence of course. I share this information cheerfully, with my geeky grin. Ah, that old familiar tweet…

We are what we tweet… The top 5 moments in the US indicate we tweet a lot when we watch TV. What does that say about us culturally…think about it. If we are what we tweet, are Americans couch potatoes?

According to Twitter’s privacy info tip What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly. You share it publically to your following. Hmmm, Tell me who you follow…

So who do we follow…not surprisingly celebrities. Is celebrity stalking, via their self-obsessive sound bites, is as important to stars as the Milton Berle show was to Elvis’, or the Ed Sullivan show to the Beatles? We can get info in real time nonstop. As my 10yo daughter says…don’t let your children on Twitter (PS they must be 13 yo to have an account)

We’ve seen the top 5 tweeting moments (what) and top 5 tweeps (who). Is that newsworthy…yes and no! The medium becomes the message…. Traditional news sources reporting about what happens on Twitter! Ah, if only the mild-mannered Marshall McLuhen could tweet ;)

Twitter’s 2012 numbers are staggering! People from around the globe tweet night & day, always on, always connected. we have access to global Twitter moments in over 61 languages. As language teachers, how do we harness this?

I have been using Twitter to learn Spanish. What a resource! There are 2.5 M hispanic americans who prefer to tweet in spanish!. But I can also learn from Beatriz in Mexico City, Luis in Honduras, Yoani in Cuba, Pam in Argentina, eraser in Seville & Pedro in the Canary Islands

Daily this 3rd party app, I have my Spanish tweets nicely laid out for me in a traditional looking e-paper, so I can read, learn, explore and share. My content is organized so I can easily “study” Culture sections in textbooks can’t compete!

Using Twitter for Spanish is too predictable, you say? Let’s look at the other languages, in all major writing systems.Remember what Ferdinand deSaussure’s said about the arbitrary nature of language … doesn’t matter how you spell it a tweet is a tuit, is a twittini, tweetjaim, twitt

My tweeting students or my STWudents, if you will, could theoretically follow experts (native Italian speakers)-they can share whatever: themselves, what they know about Italy, Italians, ItaloAmericans; - they can chat and learn from whomever they choose

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)

Chapelle (1998)’s theory of good interaction underlies my research. Twitter maximizes opportunities to create tasks for good interaction with a communicative objective: content is in authentic context, and the tasks generate communication and require meaning to be negotiated.

Tweets areself-perpetuatinggenerativeauthentic

Twitterersinterpret inputproduce output

engage in conversations

It’s organic… those who enjoy tweeting don’t need prompts or encouragement from the teacher

Ital-ians 14%

Stu-dents

in other sec-tions 15%

Classmates 46%

Teacher/Researcher 25%

My students tweeted with whom? In the two classes that participated in the study, mostly they chatted with their classmates. But they didn’t stop there…initially I encouraged conversations

To rank students perceptions of learning Italian with Twitter-Helped build their confidence in writing italian/ -Made the course more interesting, raising motivation / -Increased their knowledge of grammar & vocabulary / -Increased their cultural awareness

I <3 overachievers!Posted 324 tweets from Sept. to Dec. 2008 (required to post only 60!)

Was is really such a positive experience? This student isn’t an italian major but is a bilingual twitterer, even now almost 4 years later. She was introduced to twitter in my class and took flight to be a twegend, exceeding expectations by 400%!!

Since twitter is real-time updates, we should allow our students to take advantage of tweeting wherever and whenever. I love it when students tweets from trains/buses, the gym and other classes (eeps!)…Don’t limit foreign language tweeting to the classroom!

in class ... and beyondHave them

brainstorm ideas and post them for feedbackUse polls and hashtags to get instant feedbackHave them ask questions and get feedback from a larger community of experts

Have them tweet without promptsHave them investigate/search topics related to syllabiHave them investigate language use to build vocabularyHave them post a photo and describe it

Suggestions for using twitter in and out of the classroom. Contact time has a different dynamic (Reynol Junco’s 2011 study). Going beyond the classroom helps learning occurs intersticially, during pauses in the daily routine

Twitter does have a place in education, with analogous concepts of input, output, negotiation presented here according to degree of difficulty. This spectrum is just a sampling of possibilities for Twitter for teaching and learning.

In my 5 minutes, about 1500 new twitter accounts were opened and approximately ½ million tweets were posted. See, I’m not the only one passionate about twitter!

Enza Antenos-Confortia.k.a. iVenusa.k.a. the “mother” of foreign language twitterers*

Professor of ItalianChair, Academic Technology CommitteeMontclair State University

Twitter: @iVenusSlideshare: slideshare.net/iVenusMail: antenosconfe@mail.montclair.edu

SourcesTwitterize Me [INFOGRAPHIC] created at http://visual.ly/twitter Just How Big Is Twitter In 2012? [INFOGRAPHIC] http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-statistics-2012_b18914Twitter Bird Logo (png) http://www.publicatufoto.com/img2350.htmTwitter Bird on Books (image credit) http://www.distance-education.org/Articles/Top-75-College-Education-Tweets-133.html How Many US Hispanics on Twitter http://socialmediaspanish.com/blog/how-many-us-hispanics-on-twitter/ I’m Learning Spanish Daily http://paper.li/iVenus/learning-Spanish Are We Wired For Mobile Learning? [INFOGRAPHIC] http://voxy.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/are-we-wired-for-mobile-learning/ 10 Ways That Mobile Learning Will Revolutionize Education http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669896/10-ways-that-mobile-learning-will-revolutionize-education 25 Ways To Use Twitter In The Classroom, By Degree Of Difficulty http://edudemic.com/2012/03/25-ways-to-use-twitter-in-the-classroom-by-degree-of-difficulty/ 60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds [Infographic] http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/60-seconds

Antenos-Conforti, Enza. 2009. “Microblogging on Twitter: Social Networking in Intermediate Italian Classes” in The Next Generation: Social Networking and Online Collaboration in Foreign Language Learning. Calico Monograph Series, No. 9 Edited by Lara Lomicka and Gillian Lord. pp. 59-90. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2202963/mytwitter.pdf