31 October 2009

On evaluation via twitter

You can also read the comments from New Scientist's reporting here.

The basic idea is that Twitter can be used by students to give feedback on lectures in real time, without any special classroom technology, such as clickers. I can see the attraction, but it necessarily entails students using laptops on-line in the class, and that must be distracting, even for the famed multi-tasking millennial students.

Dedicated as I am to keeping things simple, I'd still go for the old primary-coloured cards; their signalling is not as rich, and it is more teacher-centred, but they can easily add enough two-way communication to make the lecture an interactive experience.

See also:

2 comments:

  1. I don't see why they would need laptops. Perhaps still distracting, but most (if not all) mobile phones that can send a text can also send a Tweet...

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  2. Thanks, Jonathan--that just goes to show how out of touch I am--I knew that but somehow it didn't register.

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