How to use Twitter for e-learning: SPJIMR Students Are Using it and You can too!

The best thing about Twitter is perhaps the 140 character limit that doesn't wear you out crafting long, endless posts. Contrary to common belief, Twitter is not just a platform for you to go out and be flamboyant, flashy, happy, cranky or opinionated. It can and in fact, is being used as a learning tool. So drop that preconceived notion and start thinking about how you can use twitter to learn, as well as share your learning with others.

An example close to home is SPJIMR (S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research) students using Twitter to carry on a process of collaborative learning. Students are using #spjsm to tweet ideas, insights, articles, information, basically anything on social media marketing which they find enlightening and informative and share it with their peers.

What is #spjsm?

SPJSM basically refers to SP Jain Social Marketing.  The initiative is a marketing assignment for the students in a course on social media marketing.

What are the objectives?

It is aimed at helping students understand the relevance of social media marketing and the related metrics to study its impact on brands and marketing.

Students use #spjsm to share relevant items which helps them understand certain data analytics.

What are SP Jain Students tweeting about?

How to use hashtags in social media marketing, Use of a chat app as a promotional strategy by Nokia, Tupperware getting more women in its sales force and adding premium products, apps to keep track of events in Mumbai--these are just some of the things the students are tweeting about.

Are there any Rules?

Rules and guidelines as such aren't very many; general rules apply.

Why Use Twitter for e-learning?

The answer is simple: Twitter is a place where people share updated information and ideas and it is FREE.

The concept "that's mine!" is rather limited in its scope on Twitter. Good etiquette demands that you acknowledge the person who originated a Tweet by Retweeting it. However taking a broad view of things, Twitter is a place where web content and knowledge is shared. Twitter chat and socializing as somewhat like sitting with friends at the coffee shop and talking about everything from lecture notes to technology updates to fashion trends.  Similarly Twitter helps connect people and lets them talk about anything that interests them.

Isn't it said that knowledge grows when you share it? This is precisely why Twitter is a great place to learn. Twitter keeps you updated. You can go to college and complete a course, but after a VERY short while that knowledge becomes outdated. You can always attend workshops, but they take time and cost money. One of the best things about Twitter is that it is free, always available and is buzzing with the latest ideas, information and content.

How to Use Twitter for e-learning?

If you want to use Twitter to learn, you can begin by searching for people tweeting on the topics that interest you, then follow some of these (try to find people with a higher follower to following ratio – they usually have the best links and the most interesting tweets). Start tweeting about things that interest you, though not always strictly connected to the syllabus or you can link it to what you learn in the classroom and might be value addition to learning.  Remember to be a person, not just a string of tweets, so your interest in social media marketing can stand out in your tweets and shared links. There is no need to fall in line with what other people are sharing.

The people you follow find links to articles and research that you might have never been able to come across on your own. You can't always find time to read it on the spot so you can save several such links to your Delicious page (social bookmarking site) for later (and provide others with access to all the links and sites you found interesting).

What are you waiting for? Join the e-learning bandwagon and be a truly contemporary student!