Twitter in school: Does social media belong in the classroom?

Social media is increasingly being used in classrooms by teachers hoping to enhance on-topic discussions, the New York Times reported Friday. (iStock)

A small but growing cadre of U.S. educators is trying to exploit Twitter-like technology to enhance classroom discussion, the New York Times reports.

Instead of being a distraction -- like an electronic version of note-passing -- the organized chatter can echo and feed into the main discourse, Erin Olson, an English teacher in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, told the paper.

Olson recently incorporated Twitter into a discussion of poetry with 11th graders, monitoring it and trying to absorb it into the lesson.

She and others said social media encourages students who might not otherwise participate in a classroom discussion to express themselves.

"With Twitter and other microblogging platforms, teachers from elementary schools to universities are setting up what is known as a 'backchannel' in their classes," the article said.

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Does social media belong in the classroom, in your opinion? What are the pros and cons of including it in the education process? Have you ever taken a class that incorporated social media into the discussion? If so, how did it go? Please share your stories in the comments field below.


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