SEATTLE—
Social networking sites are becoming more popular and this form of communicating is now finding its way into the classroom. The University of Washington's digital media class actually requires students to twitter *during* class.Hanson Hosein is the director of the Master of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington and says the way students learn is changing, "I think that's the way teaching has got to go and I think it's the way education has got to go. People don't want to be talk to any more. They want to have a conversation."
Gone are the days of raising your hand to ask a question. Now a student can tweet a question or comment and get it answered by another student in real time...all without interrupting the instructor. Hosein points out that, "If there's something they don't understand or something that's really interesting or even something they disagree with they might actually twitter about it directly."
And according to Nicole Collins, a student taking the class and tweeting throughout, because of the permanent record created by twitter, it makes it easier to do home work. "It's really useful and helpful especially when i'm out of the classroom. It's the weekend and I'm studying and reading and then I want to go look back at what people said during class. It's like collective notes really," said Collins.
Hosein believes that doing is a much better form of learning and says this is one way to engage students in the process and help teach them adding, "Students have not been paying attention since the beginning of time in class. So whether they've got computers or whatever else, they're not going to pay attention. So try to make them pay attention in another way and I think this really works."
