Dawn Sweet, lecturer in psychology, encouraged her research methods and nonverbal class to get on board with Twitter and tweet her to receive extra credit points and engage in classroom material.

Beginning in the fall semester, a friend encouraged Sweet to start following Paul Ekman and Joe Navarro on Twitter. They all do the same kind of work Sweet does with nonverbal behavior and deception.

“After tweeting Joe Navarro I saw how easy it was. I thought ‘ah, that’s kind cool,’ and wondered if the students would like it because it’s kind of fun,” Sweet said.

Sweet suggested students in her two classes set up Twitter accounts and follow their class’s account. Throughout the week Sweet will tweet class updates, reminders, questions and scenarios happening in the news to her followers.

Students can tweet answers to her questions, mentioning her account, in order to receive extra credit points.

“What I see this doing is just another way to keep students up to date as to what is going on in the classroom and bring to their attention to the news that might be relevant to the class,” Sweet said.

Allan Schmidt, program manager for the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, agrees Twitter in the classroom could be a positive tool.

“It gives the students an individual voice and brings about a certain conciseness because you only have 140 characters available to share ideas,” Schmidt said.

Although social media has traditionally been kept separate from classrooms, there are universities engaging in the use of such mediums in classroom settings. Schmidt relates the use of Twitter within the classroom as a replacement for a clicker.

“Purdue University will have two projectors set up,” Schmidt said. “One for the lecture notes and the second a Twitter feed. This way students will be able to react to the lecture and notes by tweeting their answers like clickers.”

It may seem that could make for a busy classroom, but some students feel more comfortable relaying their answers and opinions electronically.

“Right now, we are in our infancy, but I think this will become really successful,” Sweet said. “Students that are hesitant to talk to me in class will tweet me first and once we establish a relationship on Twitter, they begin to talk to me in class.”

Schmidt also feels Twitter increases students comfort level while answering questions. Many like the idea that they have time to think about their question and answer instead of being put on the spot.

“I think it is a great idea to keep up to date with assignments and for students to be able to share real-world examples we encounter in our everyday lives,” said Clint Puhrmann, senior in communication studies in Sweet’s nonverbal communication class.

As of now, Sweet’s use of Twitter in the classroom is an extra credit experiment. However, that’s not all Sweet wants her students to get out of it.

“One big thing I’d like students to take away from this experience is that Twitter can be a useful tool for finding others with similar professional interests and follow them to see what they are up to,” Sweet said. “It’s a way to keep up with current thinking and new ideas in their defined areas of concern.”

So far, students in Sweet’s class have been responding to the course favorably with tweets such as: #bestclassever and #Iamlovingthistwitteridea.