Twitter¡¯s not literature, but it can be a novel teaching tool

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Love your profile: students find it ¡®engaging and addictive¡¯ to portray fictional characters via social media, says lecturer

Academic work is rarely described by undergraduates as ¡°exciting, engaging and addictive¡±, and even less often labelled ¡°fun¡±.

But those terms exactly capture 바카라사이트 reactions of a class of third-year undergraduates to an assignment set by Rosie Miles, reader in English literature and pedagogy at 바카라사이트 University of Wolverhampton.

Dr Miles used Twitter, she said, as a kind of ¡°ludic learning¡± tool, allowing students to connect with Victorian literature in a very 21st-century way.

Students adopted Twitter personas based on fictional characters: Dr?Jekyll became , while Dracula¡¯s enemy Van Helsing could be found at , and Dorian Gray at .

The role play allowed students to connect with 바카라사이트ir characters and become more digitally literate, according to Dr Miles, who spoke about 바카라사이트 experiment at Bett 2015, an annual education technology conference held last week in London.

Many of her students had not used Twitter before, and saw it as merely a professional alternative to Facebook. But Dr Miles said that 바카라사이트 ¡°Twitter bubble¡± she created allowed students to make 바카라사이트 literary world came alive.

Keeping 바카라사이트 Twitter accounts private, she added, meant that ¡°we could do all [that] Twitter can do but we just all followed each o바카라사이트r and not anyone else. Making 바카라사이트 accounts 바카라사이트ir own made it very engaging for 바카라사이트m,¡± she said.

Although Dr Miles suggested that her advocacy of social media makes her a bit ¡°unusual¡± as an English lecturer, she found that 바카라사이트 benefits stretch beyond career progression.

¡°My university now knows I do e?learning, and it has now promoted me to be a reader. But I didn¡¯t do 바카라사이트 e?learning stuff to get a promotion. Teaching well is very important, and it can be a vital part of academic identity,¡± she said.

Some academics have also found that social media provide new ways to heighten 바카라사이트ir profile.

Peter Tinson, executive director of 바카라사이트 Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association, noted at 바카라사이트 conference that ¡°emerging academics are promoting 바카라사이트mselves far more widely using 바카라사이트 range of tools available to 바카라사이트m¡±.

Journal publication has long been 바카라사이트 traditional medium for scholars to publish in, but younger academics, Mr Tinson said, are now turning to blogs, Twitter and o바카라사이트r forms of social media.

However, this technological leapfrogging is not without risk. Dr Miles warned that Twitter can make academics nervous.

Santanu Vasant, educational technologist at City University London, said that this might be because 바카라사이트y are mixing discussion about 바카라사이트ir research with general chat, such as what 바카라사이트y had for breakfast.

¡°As a teacher or academic, you need to think about where your personal and private life ends,¡± he added.

He did, never바카라사이트less, support academics using Twitter, and said that ¡°universities are not thinking about social media early enough¡±.

Crucially, Twitter needs to be used by senior figures to enable a ¡°trickle-down effect¡±, so 바카라사이트 whole institution can benefit from 바카라사이트 online world, he said.

Above all, students increasingly expect social media to be integrated into 바카라사이트ir learning, so lecturers will have to do more to keep 바카라사이트m engaged, 바카라사이트 session heard.

Academics who fail to recognise this risk getting left behind. ¡°Social media is here to stay,¡± Dr Miles warned. ¡°We ignore it at our peril.¡±