Course Hashtag: #1102newmedia
Discussion Questions: begin each tweet with “Q:”
Research: begin each research-related tweet with “R:”
In-Class Activities: begin each tweet related to an in-class activity with “C:”
Due: Weekly (week ends on Sunday at midnight)
Instructor: @KateHolterhoff
Each student will create a new Twitter account for this course. Even if you already use Twitter, you must generate a new account which you will use exclusively for English 1102. This account does NOT need to use your name or make you publicly identifiable; I would suggest that your account bio mention our course and your research goals for the semester. Keep your Twitter-enabled device handy whenever you are doing work for this class.
Throughout the semester, I will help you to build a timeline in which you follow scholars, authors, professional organizations, journals, libraries, and fans who are discussing our course topic. Building this kind of timeline will help to create a set of sources that you can use to find information for your research. Use Twitter's algorithms to help you find additional users who are interested in types of research that interest you. I encourage you to tweet at these sources once you establish research questions for your artifacts.
Send Tweets on a regular basis. For many of the readings, your instructor will require you to tweet at least 1 discussion question for our next course period. In other cases, your instructor will have the class tweet during class time on a particular topic using the letter “C:”. Most tweets will be less structured.
Aim to complete approximately 5 tweets outside of class every week. I say approximately because I wish this assignment to be organic in the sense that some weeks you may post three times, and other weeks you may post ten, depending on where you are in the research process. Although I will not strictly police the number of tweets each week, your participation grade will suffer if you fail to tweet for weeks on end, or only tweet intermittently. By the end of the semester every student should have at least seventy-five thoughtful and relevant tweets written outside of class time, using the appropriate hashtag, and beginning with the appropriate letters “Q:” or “R:”.
Remember that all Tweets are public and must follow the GA Tech codes of conduct.
How do I know when I have tweeted enough for the week? Answering yes to each of these questions for most weeks (10 or more) during the semester would constitute excellent work in Twitter participation.
- Did I tweet a discussion question or observation about Monday’s reading?
- Did I tweet a discussion question or observation about Wednesday’s reading?
- Did I tweet a discussion question or observation about Friday’s reading?
- Did I tweet about my artifact project?
- Did I read through my Twitter timeline to find a source or new person to follow? Did I retweet anything relevant to the course?
- Did I respond to classmates, either to engage in a discussion, share sources, or to help brainstorm ideas?
Your Twitter feed will act as detailed notes concerning the readings, class discussion, and your research. Peers, instructors, and possibly outside experts will annotate your tweets in a constructive manner. Your Twitter account will enable you to locate scholarly and popular sources and to participate in existing online scholarly discussions about literature and new media. Tweeting will streamline the process of locating reliable, relevant, and useful sources. Twitter will enable your to interact with your peers to brainstorm, both individually and collaboratively, on your research projects.
For more on using Twitter for research see, Margaret Adolphus's "How to...use Twitter for academic research"
For advice on Live Tweeting see, Juraj Holub's "10 Easy Tips for Live Tweeting at Events"
Twitter Self-Reflection & Evaluation
My thanks to Marion L. Brittain Fellow Rebekah Fitzsimmons for encouraging me to adopt her own Twitter assignment. I credit her with many of these ideas, and much of the language.
