Affordances of Twitter

Features of the technology	Affordances (activities and practice)	Affordances (examples of pedagogy and designs)
Open content curation	Using hashtags students can easily find content related to a subject. ·         #’s can be created for a course or subject within a course. ·         Retweeting content relevant to course is easily achieved. ·         Content curation is from within and external to the Personal Learning Network. ·         Creation of lists within Twitter. ·         Favouriting tweets allows you to come back to them at a later time.	Ask Twitter…the use of open ended questioning techniques to engage a wide global audience has the potential to support Higher Order Thinking Skills.   This is through the input of a wide cross section of experts and industry opinion leaders.  Use of a hashtag to curate this open discussion affords students and facilitators the ability to easily access discussion threads and form opinions based on their current knowledge and experience within a subject. Sharing and commenting on learner generated content with a global audience.
140 character limit	This is both an affordance and a limitation. ·         Brevity is King.  Students only have 140 characters to express their message. ·         Familiarity of medium (same principles as text messaging). ·         Familiarity of using a social media tool  from everyday life (for some learners).
Inspiring and engaging for students	Leaners-generate content which: supports ‘rich, authentic learning experience, encourages student autonomy and ownership, creates meaningful student roles and interactions, especially when students are given an opportunity to discuss and celebrate their products with a relevant audience.   Supports Higher Order Thinking Skills
Ability to incorporate images, video and links to any web page.	Leaners have the advantages of all of the affordances of these mediums as well as twitter.
Synchronous and asynchronous	·         Twitter conversations can occur in real time or asynchronously. ·         Twitter conversations can be spontaneous and whilst mobile. ·         Sharing with wider network is an amplifier of student ideas and a motivator.
Networking	·         Extension of personal learning networks is infinite… ·         Ability to follow and more importantly engage world leading experts based on the quality your tweets. ·         Ability to

References

How important is Twitter in your Personal Learning Network?, CLINT LALONDE / SEPTEMBER 2012, http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2379624