Twitter, Social Networks, and the Graduate Learner
Not in the ways you may think.
Overall, Twitter users engage with news and own technology at the same rates as other Internet users, but the ways in which they use the technology — to communicate, gather and share information — reveals their affinity for mobile, untethered and social opportunities for interaction.
So says the Pew Internet and American Life Project memo on Twitter and Status Updating.
Combining this with the previous Pew report on Adults and Social networking
The share of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey.
And we can begin to see the importance of understanding these tools in graduate education. As more of our students explore the tools, we have an opportunity to explore their potential for use in course work (perhaps learners “tweet” pertinent media references to course material, or use hash tags set to your course name or number, to be an aggregator of course bibliographic information? Or perhaps, in medicine as highlighted on CNN
Moreover, the larger responsibility to to begin a dialogue about the professional / personal boundaries and limits of social networking. For example, in health care, is it appropriate to have a profile on a social network and is it reasonable to “friend” your patients?
