Script for PowerPoint Presentation

1. SCRIPT FOR TWITTER IN HIGHER EDUCATION (GROUP 1)
ABSTRACT
The research discusses the use of Twitter as a tool for communication among
students and instructors in educational settings which results in learning. What
makes this research important is that:
 It is not common to see massive use of social media platforms by
instructors and students in the higher learning environment to create
learning here in Ghana.
 Apart from the fact that Twitter has a character restriction of 140 letters,
findings confirm that Twitter if wisely used can boostlearning.
INTRODUCTION
BackgroundStudy
 Social media platforms have presented an opportunity to a lot of educators to
extend teaching and learning processesvia the internet.
 Information and knowledge can thus be created and shared over the internet.
 Twitter is one of the Web 2.0 tools, which allows for the sharing of
messages. Twitter users are able to postdirect and indirect updates. Direct
posts (personalmessages) are used when a user aims her update to a specific
person, whereas indirect updates (public messages) are used when the update
is meant for anyone that cares to read it.

2.  This study seeks to show how to get started on Twitter and explore together
how it impacts students learning in ways such as continuing discussions after
class, effective communication of ideas, sharing of information, updates on
events, posting questions and receiving answers and also can be used as a
resource for research.
Statement of the Problem
 There is so much disconnection between Instructors and Students after class
 Students keep wondering about unanswered questions
 However, many Students and Instructors use smart phones connected to
social media tools including twitter for social activities.
 Twitter is one of the tools that help in communication between people to
bridge this communication gap irrespective of distance.
 For this reason this study is meant to determine the impact of twitter on
academic activities in Higher Institutions in Ghana.
How to Set Twitter Up
1. Get an Account: http://twitter.com/
2. Setup Your Profile
3. Picture Tab: Upload a picture, also known as an Avatar
4. If you’re using a mobile phone, make sure you download the Twitter App (it’s
free).
https://louisville.edu/delphi/-/files/celebration/2016/Celebration-2016-Twitter-Basics.pdf

3. RELEVANCE
Relevance to Education
 Twitter is one of the real-time information network social media applications
that exist today connecting people
(https://louisville.edu/delphi/-/files/celebration/2016/Celebration-2016-Twitter-Basics.pdf)
 Twitter users can instantly build a personalized twitter feed that meets ones
full range of interests, bothacademic and personal.
 Earlier studies in this area tells us that thousands of academics and
researchers at all levels of experience and across all disciplines use twitter
daily alongside more than 200 million other users. (Mollett, A., Moran, D.,
& Dunleavy, P. (2011). Using Twitterin university research, teaching
and impact activities).
 Researchers can postor tweet links that lead to their research blogs for
feedbacks and comments.
 According to Chris O’Neal, using twitter in an educational setup is one
sure way to get students thinking after class.
 JasonA. Llorenz further advised that higher education teaching and
learning must evolve to be able to meet learners irrespective of where they
are located. The conventional way of teaching can even integrate Twitter to
open more learning opportunities for its students.


4. RESEARCH
Methodology
The project started with a review of literature in the Twitter sample project that
was done by students of the University of Texas, Brownsville. Data was gathered
through interviews with five (5) participants who are students and an instructor, all
of the University of Ghana, Legon. All the students created Twitter accounts and
mostly used it for academic activities. The data collected was transcribed, analysed
and compared with existing literature to draw the necessary conclusions with
recommendations.
Population Sample and Design
The population for the study was DEEL 602 students of 2015-2016 academic year
and an instructor. Out of the student population of ten (10), five (5) served as the
sample/participants for this project. We used questionnaires as the data collection
instrument. The design was such that participants were made to use Twitter for
academic work at the start of the study. This was to examine the impact on
academic activities. The research was done between March and April 2016 at the
University of Ghana, Legon.
Results and Discussion
 Demographically five (5) out of the six (6) participants were males and the other, a
female. All five are currently pursuing their Master’s degree. All of them owned
smart phones and subscribed to many social media tools such as Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, imo, Snapchat among others. It was however found
out that most of them preferred to use WhatsApp comparatively.

5.  All participants have subscribed to Twitter and apart from the instructor who used
it interact with his students and colleagues the rest of the participants generally use
it for various things but not academic.
 All participants think that Twitter can be used for structured academic activities
like interacting with colleagues and instructors on topics earlier discussed in class,
share ideas on academic research projects and assignments, announcements,
among other things
 All participants highly recommended its use at higher education institutions. The
only problem they all had with it is the character restriction of 140 letters per tweet.
For this reason they preferredto use other social media platforms that allowed
much more characters than what Twitter allows.
MULTI-MEDIA
Multimedia Tutorials
– Beginners Guide to Using Twitter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqUu2aIhU4
– Using Twitter in higher Education Teaching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEWzYVd92JU
– Using Twitter to improve College Student Engagement Part 1-5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS5rR1o72E

6. CONCLUSION and RECOMMENDATION
In conclusion, participants of this research were familiar with twitter. Some used it
social activities but now admit that twitter can be used to enhance teaching and
learning more especially for after class discussions. The use of twitter could be
very useful as it can facilitate learning but the challenge is the 140 character
restriction which we hope would be addressed soon.
 It was recommended that twitter should be integrated into our academic
activities
 Schools, policy makers, individuals and many more should be educated on
how to use twitter responsibly for academic purposes.
 We recommend it for organisations, NGO’s and other businesses to use it to
facilitate communication on the job to improve performance.
 We recommend further research in the use of social media platforms like
twitter in Ghanaian educational institutions (pre-tertiary) to see how it can
aid teaching and learning.