For Claire:

The class was composed of 10 French and 10 German students at the very end of a 3-year graduate business program.

I will do this again because twittering offers many benefits at comparatively little cost — but I will certainly be much more structured in my approach, more demanding of their participation, and more sophisticated in on-going evaluation.

Of the 12 active twitterers, half offer occasional posts: the French have returned to France, and it is those who remain in Berlin who are active — such as Sophie, who has just published a brief report on the school’s e-learning blog: Why do I blog?.

Micro-macro: they are so different. In this English class, I used macro-blogging as one would teach “writing across the curriculum,” whereby it offers opportunities to research and report on relevant professional issues and write about them. I used Twitter to offer a supportive context for daily language practice as well as build a supportive communications context.

Those who were active, by the way, said that until they used twitter, they would use either French or German, but using twitter got them to speaking together in English: as English is both a course and larger institutional goal, I couldn’t be happier.

I might also add that those that twittered infrequently were typically also those who spoke less often in class, preferred to whisper while others were talking, and when asked preferred as well to keep their opinions to themselves. In part, these were, in my view, those with weaker linguistic skills more generally, but also — and I say this as I am a terrible student of the German language — that their priorities were likely elsewhere. I would suspect that variations in twitter use have to do with variations in more general attitudes towards teaching, learning, the role of the schools, and the public sphere.

I would also suspect that twittering may have polarized things a bit as well, because the majority who twittered clearly offered each other a lot of mutual support, never mind fun, and that put those who did not in a difficult position: maybe “polarization” is too strong a word and I should think instead of our approaching the “tipping point”, because basically they were/are all very smart, engaged, and eager to learn, and if I had been more experienced with students like them I might have brought them all right along.