Rethinking Twitter

Abstract

Despite being more widely known for its contributions to pop culture, and more recently political news and events, a growing body of literature exists about Twitter's use in education. This chapter presents a framework for using Twitter as an instructional review tool, leveraging its timely, unique, and efficient communication style while incorporating theories of memory and cognitive psychology that are more than two centuries old. The authors present applied practice study examples of how Twitter may be used as a means for distributed practice in learning concepts. While practitioners may be concerned about student adoption of Twitter, research presented in this chapter reports that Twitter is user-friendly and is most engaging for students when an instructor frequently participates.