Tweeting and Blogging: Moving Towards Education 2.0

This paper reports on an exploratory study that employed Twitter and blogs as instructional Web 2.0 tools to support student learning in an undergraduate-level class. Case study methodology entailing a usage survey, an exit survey, and 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews was sought to examine patterns and characteristics of students' usage of social media and to elicit their perceptions on how the incorporation of Twitter and blogs facilitated their learning. Findings demonstrate that as advanced users of social media, the students highly embraced the incorporation of Twitter and blogs in the class. Not only were the students motivated to utilize social media, but they also employed a high degree of self-discipline and self-exploration in using those social tools for learning. Overall they perceived the incorporation positively, but critically pointed out the perceived challenges. Discrepancies in their usage patterns and learners' characteristics indicate that instructors should distinguish advanced users from novice users and develop strategies accordingly when introducing social media in varying educational settings.