"It's Much Easier to Tweet from the Seated Position"

A historic first today: President Obama hosted a real time Twitter town hall. If anyone doubts the power of social media, the sight of an American president using a laptop and answering questions tweeted from citizens should put those doubts to rest. We indeed live in a brave new world. Surreal.

Twitter in the College Classroom

A post over at Millard Fillmore's Bathtub highlights the use of Twitter in a history course at University of Texas at Dallas. In large college courses it is near impossible to have any kind of coherent discussion and most instructors are left to use a lecture-only format at all times. Plus, there is a time problem--most classes are only 50 minutes or 75 minutes long making the trade off between moderating discussion and getting through the course material via lecture one which usually favors lecture. Finally, as class size increases, so does the intimidation factor and many students who are shy or not self-confident will choose to remain silent even if they want to engage in discussion.



Use of Twitter may alleviate some, but not all, of these problems. Count me intrigued. Perhaps Twitter will be making an appearance in my Fall classes...