Professors may frown on the use of iPhones during class but a new report via the Modern Educator blog has some useful suggestions for Twitter in the classroom.

5 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom

Tweeting in Class
Some educators are opening up to the idea that social media can improve student engagement and performance. In years past, it was not easy for students to muster up the courage to raise their hands to ask a question during lectures. Now, interaction with TAs, professors, and even industry experts is all within a thumb’s reach using Twitter.

In fact, one instructor at Michigan State University released a study that discovered that courses that engage students on Twitter may actually see higher interaction and better grades. In the report, “Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literary Practice,” Christine Greenhow found that students who were engaging with classmates and their professor on Twitter were more interested in the course material and received higher grades.

5 Ways to Use Twitter in Classroom
Here are a few simple ways to use Twitter in your higher education classroom.

1. Professional Development: Have your students follow politicians, thought leaders or industry experts. That way, course content becomes more relevant to the world outside of the classroom.

2. Collaborative Learning: Encourage your students to follow one another. Even better, create a hashtag for your class, so it is easy for your students to find one another and to share interesting and pertinent content.

3. Student-initiated Questions: Set aside the last few minutes of class to address students’ questions on Twitter. This allows even the most introverted students to have a channel to ask any unanswered questions at the end of a lecture.

Pro tip: have your TA manage the class hashtag throughout the lecture and identify the best questions!

4.”Office Hours” on Twitter: Tell your students you’ll be on during certain times after class. Instead of fielding emails, you can answer students’ concise and direct questions for the rest of the class to see.

5. Research: Use Twitter’s “Explore” search engine to see every related tweet, providing a way for students to collect ideas, opinions and movements in real time.