Twitter in the Higher Education Classroom: A Student and Faculty Assessment of Use and Perception

Social networking has become a prominent communication method in recent years. The objective of this study was to assess social media use and perception of utility in higher education classrooms among faculty, graduate, and undergraduate cohorts. As a case study, Twitter was included into a semester course to disseminate relevant course information and serve as a discussion tool. Overall, students used social media more frequently than faculty. Further, students more readily identified with positive aspects of social media inclusion into courses compared with faculty. We demonstrated that Twitter can be integrated into a classroom to augment content. However, Twitter was perceived as too obtuse for formal discussion interaction. We suggest that although Twitter provides a hub for linking course topics with current news and activities, use for active discussion and feedback should be tempered.