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University of Louisiana – Monroe, USA

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Twitter as a micro-blog in higher education has been considered a new pedagogical tool for social and
academic communications among educators and students since its inception in 2006. Twitter provides
space and opportunities for students and faculty to engage in social and academic activities as a new
pedagogical tool. Despite the limited research on Twitter as a learning tool, a significant number of
educators in the US, the UK, Australia, and other parts of the world have used Twitter to interact with
students, to share course information, and to collaborate research among educators. This chapter pres-
ents existing literature on Twitter and debates on the usage of Twitter in higher education as a learning
pedagogy.

,1752'8&7,21 on social network sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter,

In the past few years, researchers and educa-
tors have significantly used and participated in
online social networking in higher education.
Online social media has strengthened the digital
knowledge of educators at the global level. Digital
invention mainly in the field of Web-based literacy
has bridged the gap between the technologically
advanced and less-advanced countries . Research
LinkedIn, YouTube, and foursquare) has explored
the relationship between educational outcomes and
social networking (Gouseti, 2010; Kirschner &
Karpinski, 2010), student and faculty relationships
(Malesky & Peters, 2012; Veletsianos, 2012), and
student engagement and social presence (Dunlap
& Lowenthal, 2009; Junco, Elavsky, & Heiberger,
2013).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4757-2.ch010

Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

In this digital era, younger students and a
growing number of instructors are technologically
driven to engage in social media (Veletsianos,
2012). These students and their faculty are socially
networked among peers and friends. According to
the Pearson research, about 60 percent of faculty
out of 1921 participants reported using at least
one social media site monthly (Moran, Seaman,
& Tinti-Kane, 2011). In the Faculty Focus survey,
16.5 percent of higher education faculty out of
840 participants reported using Twitter daily com-
pared to 44.6 percent of faculty using Facebook
(Bart, 2011). In another study, about nearly half
(46.5 percent) of faculty out of 831 never used
Twitter, but 11.4 percent of them were willing to
use Twitter in the future (Faculty Focus, 2010).
However, there are debates on the effectiveness
of the use of different social networking sites in
an educational context. Through the use of online
learning spaces, scholars and educators have ad-
vocated ways to engage diverse students of the
21st century. Opinion varies regarding the use of
social networking sites as instructional tools with
a promotional purpose to socially connect with
students and alumni. Although in the past few
years, social networking in higher education has
been a rapidly growing phenomenon, research on
Twitter is in its early stages (Veletsianos, 2012).
Twitter is a fairly new social networking site
that offers micro blogging services. It offers
learners and educators opportunities to interact
via Twitter posts, also called Tweets, on Smart-
phones, laptops, iPods, and any devices with
Internet access. Twitter is the most popular free
application, with almost one million users who
can send and receive messages via the Web, short
message service (SMS), instant message clients,
and through third party applications (Grosseck
& Holotescu, 2008). When Twitter is used for
class discussion, it facilitates students’ skills of
summarization by consolidating their thoughts
with concise and precise syntactic structure and
vocabulary in their tweets (Bart, 2010). Moreover,

7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
Twitter can be used for promoting and dissemi-
nating opinions, articles, and quotes (Grosseck &
Holotescu, 2008).
This chapter briefly discusses the use of Twit-
ter as social media pedagogy in disseminating
information concerning higher education. It also
includes a comparative analysis of positive and
negative perceptions regarding the application of
Twitter in higher education classrooms, student
engagement inside and outside the classroom,
and research on collaborative interactions among
education in research application.
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In the age of digital literacy, there are differ-
ent academic and non-academic communities,
cultures and sub-cultures across the globe. The
techno-literate practice is not well defined as
young people are becoming digital natives, and old
people are becoming digital immigrants (Prensky,
2001). In less than a decade of history of social
media (LinkedIn was founded in 2002, Facebook
in 2004 and Twitter in 2006), academic societies
are gradually experiencing social media and their
effectiveness in higher education as pedagogical
tools. Today’s learners are socially, culturally,
and technologically different from the learners of
past decades because of the rapid digital innova-
tion in higher education. Learning communities
inside and outside the classroom are more diverse
linguistically and demographically. To engage
technically savvy learners in the 21st century,
researchers have advocated the importance of
incorporating social media as pedagogical tools
(Blair, 2013; Limbu, 2011; Rockinson-Szapkiw
& Szapkiw, 2011).
In this context of Web 2.0 classroom practices
to meet the competing demands and challenges led
by globalization and evaluation in social media
usages in teaching and learning, Twitter has been
used distinctively in college education across dis-
7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
ciplines. Existing studies have shown a significant
positive role of social sites in communicating
with students as a learning tool in the classroom
(Blair, 2013; Junco, Elavsky, & Heiberger, 2013;
Veletsianos, 2012).
There are limited studies on the use of Twitter
in higher education. A few researchers and edu-
cators have begun considering the use of Twitter
for educational purposes (Ahrenfelt, 2009; Fac-
ulty Focus, 2010; Hart, 2009; Ramsden, 2009).
According to the research conducted by Faculty
Focus (2009), more than half of nearly 2000 fac-
ulty participants responded that they had never
used Twitter. Of the total, 30.7 percent of faculty
reported using Twitter, and less than half of them
used Twitter to communicate with students. The
remaining 12.9 percent of respondents said they
tried Twitter in the past but no longer use it. The
majority of participants who did not use Twitter
questioned the educational relevance of Twitter
and “expressed concerns that it creates poor writ-
ing skills,” and faculty also expressed the fact that
they did not know how to use Twitter or didn’t
have time to use it (Faculty Focus, 2009, p. 2). The
faculty who used Twitter, according to the Faculty
Focus (2010) survey, gave a variety of reasons for
using it: “to share information with peers” and
“as a real-time news source,” instructional uses
such as “to communicate with students” and “as
a learning tool in the classroom” (p. 2). In the
survey, 56.8 percent of faculty reported that they
were likely to use it in the coming academic year,
and 2.5 percent would be likely to decrease their
usage of Twitter in the coming year.
Since Twitter’s launch in 2006, educators in
higher education seem to use the on-line social
media platform more and more in teaching and
learning. Researchers and educators have been
constantly seeing its maximum potential usage as
a pedagogical tool, as a tool for advertisements,
and a tool for making social connections. Twitter
can be included on Blackboard (as this is the most
popular teaching platform in U.S. colleges) and
both students and instructors find it helpful. In the
past few years, professors have become interested
in using Twitter in their classrooms. For instance,
two professors of economics at the University of
Bristol in the United Kingdom have experimented
with Twitter in the classroom. They used Twitter
to teach history to undergraduate students where
professors can tweet links, announcements and
discussions on Twitter. In the United States, a
few professors at the University of Texas at Dal-
las and at Liberty University have experimented
with Twitter in the classroom (Ramdsen, 2009).
Professors found greater student participation
while using Twitter in a large class of 90 or more
students.
Twitter has been used in teaching numerous
courses including history, geography, business and
language learning. Yuan (2012) explored whether
using Twitter made any impact on students’
performance in English writing and reading in
a Taiwanese college as a doctoral research proj-
ect. The researchers provided the same learning
materials to the sample 56 students in the Twitter
user group as in the non-Twitter group. The results
indicated that the different learning approaches
did not make a signification impact on the learn-
ers’ reading and writing performance, but Twitter
assisted learning had a significant positive influ-
ence on the learning attitudes (Yuan, 2012). In a
qualitative study, Veletsianos (2012) examined
about 4500 tweets from 45 faculty participants
who held a doctorate and actively used Twit-
ter for educational purposes. The results of the
study showed that the participants used Twitter
to share information, resources and media related
to professional practices (Veletsianos, 2012).
Dunlap and Lowenthal (2009) found that Twitter
was a helpful information exchange platform to
increase students’ learning. Luttrell (2012) found
a positive correlation between the effectiveness
of Twitter in comprehension and application of
course material and students.
Educators have also used Twitter to enhance the
social presence of students. In a study conducted
at the University of Colorado at Denver, the in-


structors used Twitter to encourage their students
to post in a variety of ways: to post questions and
queries to one another, to send student to student
direct messages, to share resources, to link to stu-
dent blogs, to comment on conferences that their
friends were attending, and to exchange personal
information (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). The
authors have reported that Twitter can enhance
students’ perceptions of a sense of “social pres-
ence” that helps promote student involvement,
commitment, and retention. The flexibility of
Twitter illustrates how Twitter enables students
to participate in a wide range of interactions from
private messages between peers to arranging
meetings and to engaging in learning processes.
A team of researchers used Twitter to collect
data on student learning activities at Sheffield
Hallam University (Aspden & Thorpe, 2009). In
that study, 15 students were recruited to participate
in a two-week experiment in which students were
required to Tweet three times a day on average
about their learning activities and the spaces they
were using (http://twitter.com/learningspaces).
When Twitter was used as an informal platform,
students were more comfortable sharing informa-
tion while using it as a data collection tool. The
researchers and students used the direct message
function to send the information. The researchers
reported that Twitter was a data collection tool
with “the ability for participants to update any-
time, almost anywhere and through a variety of
devices that are integral to their lives (cell phones,
laptops, desktop PCs)” (Aspden & Thorpe, 2009,
p. 24). They also found that the 140 character
limit on Twitter forced students to tweet concise
and focused information. Such case studies sug-
gest the possibility for Twitter as a research and
pedagogical tool of higher education.
Salter (2012) has offered a number of tips
about using Twitter in the conference backchan-
nels (i.e., include a Twitter handle on every
slide, use Twitter-friendly links). Twitter enables
conference participants and speakers to actively
engage in discussion, since the users can Tweet

7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
micro-feedback and responses in real time (Priego,
2011). Other research has also indicated the role
of Twitter in establishing a learning relationship
between students and instructors through the pro-
cess of sharing ideas, resources and reflections
(Blair, 2013; Ebner, Lienhardt, & Meyer, 2010).
Twitter has bridged a gap between the personal
and professional lives of students and educators.
For instance, researchers in China and Hong Kong
investigated Tweets posted by 26 users to see the
relationship between Twitter in social capital and
its outside and inside worlds, and they found that
Twitter activities have significant impacts on the
lives of people (Ye, Fang, He, & Hsieh, 2012).
Within a short time span, Twitter has been used
as both a pedagogical and research tool in various
educational disciplines. Students and teachers are
not only socially connected, but also increasingly
finding a sense of belonging through interactions
in social sites.
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Launched in October 2006, Twitter is an infor-
mation networking tool that allows its users to
post a topic or a discussion no longer than 140
characters. Twitter requires the users to create an
account like on Facebook. Twitter includes several
features for sharing information such as timeline
(chronological display of messages) and other
settings, either private or public. In addition to
sharing short messages and “Retweet” services,
it allows users to share Web links, photos, videos
and other media content. In 140 characters or less,
people share ideas and resources, ask and answer
questions, and collaborate on problems of practice.
Creating a Twitter account for a classroom
purpose may take a few minutes if the faculty
member has not had an account before. First,
you need to sign-up by clicking the following
link https://twitter.com/ and by filling out the re-
quired information (e.g., name, e-mail, password,
7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
department or college link, a brief bio.). Second,
select the options under the profile setting which
allow the user to select whom to share informa-
tion with and how to protect information from
people outside of the class. Finally, the teacher
can share the Twitter class account with students
and ask them to follow the class twitter feed for
the course. This can be accomplished by inviting
students in the course to use Twitter either by
sending an email message or directly posting a
message from Twitter.
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On Twitter, an educator can perform a number of
personal and professional activities with students
and colleagues including: asking for help or advice
about a professional question, tweeting a useful
Web resource, sharing new studies of interest,
inviting people to an event (online or offline),
participating in online debates and talks and so
on. Twitter can be used for the following educa-
tional purposes:
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Twitter can be used in a variety of activities in
higher education classrooms. Once students and
teachers create a Twitter account for the course, the
teacher can use it not only for inviting students in
class to take a quiz, to participate in class discus-
sion and to remind them of the assignment, but
also to get an instant response. Student engagement
in learning activities and assessment can be seen
instantly when using Twitter. Unlike traditional
teacher-centered instruction, the teacher does not
have to ask the students to raise their hands nor
wait a long time to assess learning.
Teachers in higher education can use Twit-
ter for instant student quizzing and polling. For
this, the teacher has to create quiz on a different
Website such as Twtpll (http://twtpoll.com/) or
Poll Daddy (http://polldaddy.com/) or Twitter Fall
(http://twitterfall.com/) or any other survey link
and incorporate the link within Twitter where us-
ers can participate. By using the links for quizzes
and polling on the platform of Twitter, the teacher
can display instant results to the class. The teacher
can ask students a question that is projected onto
a screen, and have them tweet their answers.
As students in today’s higher education are
technology-driven and the majority of them are on
social networking sites, teachers can see a higher
percentage of student participation in their classes.
By using Twitter for quizzes, for instance, instruc-
tors can give immediate feedback concerning
student thoughts and answers. Moreover, student
participation in such learning activities may in-
crease while using Twitter because it gives students
privacy and confidentiality, since responses from
students are anonymous (Rockinson-Szapkiw &
Szapkiw, 2011). Also, the instructors can create
live charts and graphs to organize and display
student responses on screen or on PowerPoint
slides by using Twitter. Researchers argue that
the use of Twitter for in and out of class quiz-
zing and polling may allow for greater accuracy
and transparency when compared to traditional
teaching (Rockinson-Szapkiw & Szapkiw, 2011).
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Twitter can foster class discussion when the in-
structor encourages students to tweet questions,
thoughts, links and photos related to the current
topic in class. Students collaborate in and out-
side the classroom discussion forming different
groups, best applicable when the class size is
large. Educators and researchers have suggested
rigid guidelines and expectations for the class
while assigning groups and moderators from each
group (Matteson, 2010; Rockinson-Szapkiw &


Szapkiw, 2011). Both the moderator and instruc-
tor can control the posts and appropriateness of
the Tweets. Students also can participate outside
the class discussion using the Twitter application
for mobile phones or computers in which teach-
ers should ask students to use the hashtag (#) in
order to organize topics brought up in the class.
For instance, to Tweet topics related to a Global
Education class, the keywords with hashtag will
be (#globalEd) which enables the students and
instructor to search for the post if needed in fu-
ture. In addition to students, educators can set up
research or writing project collaboration across
the region or country. For instance, Chickester
(2010) writes about cross-country collaboration
among dynamic educators related to her special
education course where she received professional
support from educators located in various parts
of the United States.
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Twitter is a helpful tool for assigning group proj-
ects. Outside the traditional classroom students
may not have easy access to physically meet. For
instance, in online classes students may reside
in different locations. Twitter is also helpful for
group projects when individual ideas may go
unheard because of different personalities or
circumstances. Instructors may find monitoring
activities and grading them easy while using the
Twitter platform. Based on the assigned topics and
the objectives of the class, the instructors can make
groups of students and assign a topic to each group.
Students from each group can tweet Web links,
information, images and videos related to the topic.
The instructor can also set up certain expectations
such as number of tweets and quality of information
to ensure active participation as well as standards
of work (Rockinson-Szapkiw & Szapkiw, 2011).
Al-Khalifa (2010) has listed a number of positive

7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
attributes relating to Twitter in higher education
such as for academic collaboration (between col-
leagues, in group meetings), for communication
between teacher and student, student and student,
teacher and parents, for conference backchannel,
and for job posting and circulating departmental
news. In addition, educators can use Twitter to
track attendance of students, or as a virtual office
where they can monitor students’ posting and
assignments. Twitter is a technological tool that
offers a synchronous communication medium
for students and educators interested in the field
(Al-Khalifa, 2010).
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Based on their experiences, Dunlap and Lowen-
thal, (2009) have offered the following guidelines
while using Twitter with students in higher educa-
tion classes:
1. Establish Relevance for Students: Instructors
of the course should share a clear purpose
of using Twitter for the class. Students may
not participate in Twitter if they do not see
academically meaningful ways of doing so
(Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009).
2. Define Clear Expectations for Participation:
Instructors should encourage participating
students to share their tweets instead of
designing it as a requirement. Dunlap and
Lowenthal (2009) have reported that they
defined their expectations with students,
and asked them to log into Twitter three
times a day for two weeks to examine how
valuable these students find Twitter in their
learning process. As instructors, they posted
important questions if they had them when
the course was on.
3. Model Effective Twitter Use: Throughout the
course, teachers can show an active participa-
tion in Twitter. The effective strategies can be
7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
connecting with other professionals, asking
questions, and sharing resources (Dunlap &
Lowenthal, 2009).
4. Build Twitter-derived Results into
Assessment: To award credit to students
and let them value Twitter as a professional
resource, Dunlap and Lowenthal (2009) as-
sessed quality and frequency of Tweets that
students developed during the course.
5. Continue to Actively Participate in Twitter:
Educators can ask students to continue their
presence in the Twitter community after
courses are completed. As Dunlap and
Lowenthal (2009) believed Twitter was a
valuable resource tool, they encouraged their
students to engage in Twitter to build their
own professional and academic connections
with friends, peers, and professionals.
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With so much positive aspects of using Twitter in
the classroom, some educators are also looking at
the cons of its use and as to whether social media
is an appropriate application for the classroom..
Some faculty have adopted a zero tolerance of
technology policy, especially the use of Facebook
and Twitter in the classroom.
326,7,9($5*80(176
While some practitioners view positive aspects of
such social media for keeping students actively
engaged in learning activities (Galagan, 2010),
Twitter, like any other social media, helps students
engaged using a media application in which they
are interested. Rockinson-Szapkiw and Szapkiw
(2011) mentioned that Twitter had encouraged
students in “critical thinking, synthesis and
evaluation throughout learning process” (p. 360).
Similarly, Junco, Elavsky and Heiberger (2013)
reported positive relationships between Twitter
use and student engagement where students used
Twitter in educationally relevant and productive
ways. In another mixed method study, Junco, Hei-
bergert, and Loket (2011) examined the impact of
Twitter use on student learning and engagement
in their teaching classes, and they found that the
experimental group had greater engagement as
well as higher semester grade point averages than
the control group. Using Twitter as an educational
tool, they found that students and faculty were also
“highly engaged in the learning process in ways
that transcended traditional classroom activities”
(Junco et al., 2011, p. 119).
The Faculty Focus survey (2010) results show
that a third (35.2 percent) of the 1,372 faculty
respondents used Twitter. But, the percentage
of educators who never used Twitter decreased
from 56.4 percent (out of 1,958) in 2009 to 47.9
percent in 2010. About 17 percent of faculty re-
ported that they tried Twitter but stopped using
it (Faulty Focus, 2010). The participants shared
the comments as to how they were using Twitter
in their personal and professional lives (Faculty
Focus, 2010, pp. 9-10):
I teach a segment in my marketing class on Twitter
& student use is a requirement.
I’ve found Twitter useful for increasing students’
time thinking about course related content through
tweeting supplemental content links and for some
very limited student interaction. I’m hoping to
encourage more student input.
I integrate Twitter fully in all my online courses.
I require students to do the same as well.
I take a lot of MBA students overseas and Twitter
is a great way to provide them with links about
news in the destinations.


1(*$7,9($5*80(176
Twitter may not be appropriate for all instructional
situations based on the nature and demand of the
courses. Grosseck and Holotescu (2008) have
identified Twitter as time-consuming, addictive,
and possibly even a way to encourage bad gram-
mar as a result of its 140-character limit. In ad-
dition, students and faculty may be charged data
fees if they access Twitter on their cell phones.
Sometimes, online surveys that faculty want to
connect on to their Twitter pages, for example,
survey polls, may require a subscription fee.
Furthermore, participants in a study who used
Twitter in the classroom have expressed frustration
and anxiety (Faculty Focus, 2009). The faculty
participants reported several negative comments
about the use of Twitter such as (Faculty Focus,
2009, pp. 5-6),
It’s mostly a waste of time and energy.
I have enough other ways to waste time.
It seems to be a stupid time-eating worthless
pursuit.
It’s beneath my dignity.
I am sick of student writing that is unprofessional.
I am also tired of receiving student work that has
incomplete sentences, fragments, subject-verb
agreement mistakes, point of views mistakes,
tense mistakes.
The faculty participants questioned the deter-
ring academic literacy practices as a result of
Twitter. Faculty participants found Tweets posted
by students were below the academic standards
such as written and oral communication skills
(Bart, 2011). In the 2010 Faculty Focus survey,
47.9 percent of 1385 faculty participants reported
that they never used Twitter, and these educators
gave a variety of reasons for not using Twitter
(Faculty Focus, 2010, p. 12):

7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
Don’t know how to use it,” (11.7 percent);
Don’t have time to use it,” (4.7 percent);
Question its educational relevance; (2.3 percent)
and
Unsure of whether students use it.” (22.7 percent)
The Faculty Focus (2010, pp. 11-12) catego-
rized the comments into the following categories:
• Concern it creates poor writing skills/has
little educational value
Like texting, it encourages poor grammar and
atrocious spelling.
Hard to see how Twitter can engage critical
thinking.
• Students aren’t using it
Students of traditional age at my college do not
use Twitter. They text, Facebook, blog, and more,
but they do not use Twitter.
Most of the students I talk to don’t use it. They text.
• Don’t need another communication tool
I think Twitter is a distraction and a time waster.
I have no interest in adding yet another commu-
nication tool to my overloaded life.
&21&/86,21
Twitter can be educational micro-blogging for in-
structional purposes as it has potential for making
educational experiences engaging and creative for
learners in higher education. Although there are
clear debates between the educational rhetoric and
the use of social spaces (e.g. Twitter, Facebook,
7ZLWWHULQ+LJKHU(GXFDWLRQ
and LinkedIn), the careful and creative use of
such social media can strengthen the educational
interest and academic success of students. As
seen in the existing literature, Twitter is a new
pedagogical tool that may add positive attributes
in addition to the traditional instructional mode
because it offers active collaborative and student
participation in teaching and learning activities.
Social media like Twitter is rich in engaging
students and teachers, and educators across the
disciplines have widely used it.
Scholars and educators have used online social
networks for various personal and professional
reasons (Blair, 2013; Junco at el., 2011). Because
the reasons are so varied, it is complex to define
such academic pursuits and identities. The debate
concerning how non-scholarly social interactions
build the academic rigor of students is complicated
as well. Some educators have found Twitter benefi-
cial to relate both professional and personal lives
(Lalonde, 2011; Wilkinson & Thelwall, 2012),
whereas others are exploring the possibility of
social media (e.g. Twitter) in educational domains
(Hytten, 2010; Junco, Elavsky, & Heiberger, 2013).
It is hard to determine the facts about whether
scholars are sharing information using Twitter
to build intellectual growth or to develop a brand
around themselves (Veletsianos, 2012). There
are no definite answers about whether Twitter
has been creating more social and educational
opportunities for scholarly practice or educators
who, with the use of Twitter in their personal lives,
are arguing the possibility of Twitter in academic
endeavors. The only prediction is that Twitter
is one of emerging online spaces for social and
scholarly participation and it needs future inquiry
for other possibilities.
Twitter is an emerging social media, and fac-
ulty has experimented with how to use it in their
classrooms. Age of students, number of students,
and nature of classroom setting and technological
knowledge of students can be some of the variables
that the teacher has to consider while using Twit-
ter in the classroom. Also, Twitter can be used
differently in online teaching than in a traditional
classroom setting. Social media (e.g., Facebook,
Twitter or YouTube) cannot replace the academic
expectations and pedagogical varieties; however, it
may certainly contribute to emerging pedagogical
roles. The use of Twitter may not change the con-
ventional academic literacy practices. However,
it certainly invites students to participate in the
learning process, since the younger generation is
emerged in latest technology and their lives are
attached to smart technologies like iPhones and
iPods and using attractive social media like Twit-
ter and Facebook. More empirical research in the
field is needed to answer the quires of educational
gains about the significant role of Twitter for the
future generation of learners.
5()(5(1&(6
Al-Khalifa, H. S. (2010). Finding a place for Twit-
ter in higher education. Education and Technologi-
cal Perspectives. Retrieved from http://elearnmag.
acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=1821980
Aspden, E. J., & Thorpe, L. P. (2009). Where do
you learn? Tweeting to inform learning space
development. EDUCASE Quarterly, 32(1).
Bart, M. (Ed.). (2011). Social media usage trends
among higher education faculty: Faculty focus
special report. Madison, WI: Magna Publica-
tions, Inc.
Blair, A. (2013). Democratizing the learning
process: The use of Twitter in the teaching of
politics and international relations. Politics, 33(2),
135–145. doi:10.1111/1467-9256.12008
Chichester, K. (2010, August 27). Cross-county
collaboration: It all started with Twitter. National
Writing Project. Retrieved from http://iditalis/
nwp.org/resource/716
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting
the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social
presence. Journal of Information Systems Educa-
tion, 20(2), 129–135.


Ebner, M., Lienhardt, C., Rohs, M., & Meyer,
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Globalization: It primarily means the emer-
gence of world views, ideas, cultures, social media,
technology, and interactions within and across
the local cultural settings. This is a measuring
framework to examine or re-examine the global
fundamental changes, educational policies and
practices, and advancement in societies.
Higher education: Commonly known as
post-secondary or tertiary level of education that
includes teaching, research and social services.
Higher Education is a program of study that re-
ports on developments in both public and private
higher education sectors, issues and challenges of
teachers, students, administrators, and educators.
Twitter: Launched in October 2006, Twitter
is an information networking tool that allows its
users to post a topic or a discussion no longer than
140 characters. Twitter is the most popular free
application, with almost one million users who
can send and receive messages via the web, short
message service (SMS), instant message clients,
and through third party applications.
Web 2.0 Pedagogy: This refers to web-based
teaching learning resources where students and
instructors use technological tools such as as
social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis,
e-portfolios, and other applications to commu-
nicate and collaborate. Web 2.0 pedagogy is a
contemporary educational shift from traditional
instructions towards student-centered collabora-
tive approach.