Greenhow, C., & Gleason, B. (2012). Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literacy Practice. The Educational Forum, 76, 464-478. doi:10.1080/00131725.2012.709032
This article discusses Twitter as a form of digital literacy and how it impacts informal and formal learning and serves as a new literacy practice along with other social media such as Facebook, Foursquare, and YouTube. They discuss the expectations of employers for people to have these literacies and the impact this has on education and educational research.
They highlight the opportunities for instructors to use Twitter as a “back channel” for communication between classes. The use of these social media sites may encourage the development of information literacy skills and the overall development of information literacy, (Greenhow & Gleason, 2012).
The studies reviewed in the article suggest a relationship developing between traditional, print-based literacy skills and standards and new social literacy practices that traverse online and offline spaces. Because of this, the authors propose three ways that tweeting practices may impact standard language proficiencies and development. These include: (1) improving students’ motivation and engagement with course content, (2) increasing student-student or student-instructor interactions, which creates opportunities for feedback and mentoring; and (3) offering lower barriers to publishing and a more relaxed writing style, which can encourage self-expression, creativity, playfulness, and risk-taking.
This article, written in 2012 offers great insight into the potential of using social media sites in learning and these are taking place more and more today. The benefits and challenges listed still exist, but we have learned to overcome many of the challenges mentioned in the article as we have had more practice using the platforms in classroom and blended and online settings. The authors offer several opportunities for further inquiry that have since been undertaken and reported on. There is always room for further inquiry into these practices by specific users and subgroups and the strides being made or challenges faced when using such technology.
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