Microblogging

Representations of the old Twitter (Source: OpenClipart-Vectors, goo.gl/0KJS46, under CC0 Public Domain licence), Mastodon (Source: Rotchko, E., 2018, bit.ly/3FFpoG3, under GNU Affero General Public Licence), and the new Twitter/X (Source: SeekLogo, 2023, rb.gy/kc4tn, free download)

Microblogging is a classic web 2.0 tool which exists at the intersection of blogging, social networking and social sharing. It involves the rapid exchange of concise information, often including images, videos and/or weblinks. There have been a number of microblogging services over the years, but many have now disappeared. For a long time, global microblogging was almost entirely dominated by Twitter (see the cartoon image above left, and the new Twitter X icon above right) but after a change of management in 2022 many users switched to the decentralised Mastodon (see the cartoon above centre). One longstanding alternative is Plurk, while the decentralised Bluesky was launched in 2021, and Meta’s Threads entered the field in 2023. Twitter was officially renamed X in July 2023, with an accompanying change of logo (as seen above). In China, where Twitter/X is inaccessible, there are some highly successful alternatives including Sina Weibo (微博). Because they involve quick, succinct sharing, microblogs are often accessed in an app version on mobile devices and thus may be linked to mobile learning.

The remainder of this page focuses primarily on Twitter/X, which as of early 2024 remains by far the largest global microblogging service, but many of the same points and potential uses apply to alternative microblogging platforms.

It is free to set up an account with Twitter/X, after which you can:

• • follow those whose tweets (i.e., posts) you are interested in reading, ranging from actors and singers through to politicians, scientists and authors. Once you have done so you can see their tweets, their replies to others, and tweets they have liked, in your constantly updated newsfeed. Note that unlike on social networking services, where friending requires a mutual connection, Twitter/X permits you to follow anyone with a public account, with no obligation for that person to follow you
  • search for tweets on particular topics by typing a hashtag (introduced by the symbol #) into the search box
  • tweet your own comments of up to 280 characters per tweet in languages based on the Roman alphabet, potentially including photos, videos and/or weblinks. These tweets can then be viewed by others who have chosen to follow you, or who search for any hashtags you have used. Note that there was formerly a limit of 140 characters, but in late 2017 this was doubled for languages other than Chinese, Japanese and Korean (which, as character-based languages, can express far more in 140 characters than alphabet-based languages)
  • retweet others’ tweets that you find interesting in order to share them with your own followers
  • send private direct messages to anyone with whom you have a mutual connection (i.e., you are both following each other)

In education, Twitter/X is used for a number of purposes:

• • backchannel conversation: during presentations or seminars, audiences can use a Twitter/X hashtag (introduced by the symbol #) to link together their questions and comments, leading to a real-time backchannel discussion between audience members. This could also be of interest to other Twitter/X users who are unable to attend the live event. Indeed, it is very common nowadays for conferences to set up an official conference hashtag. Where an official hashtag has been set up, presenters may sometimes display a live feed of comments and questions at the front of the room, usually by using a second data projector and/or screen, and address them at appropriate intervals or at the end of the presentation. A similar backchannel approach can be used in the classroom to gather students’ questions and comments during a lesson, as an alternative to LMS or videoconferencing platform chat windows.
  • polling: Twitter/X can be effectively used as a polling service.
  • building personal/professional learning networks (PLNs): by finding and following experts, colleagues and/or peers on Twitter/X, teachers and students can keep up with the latest developments in a given field of study or research, since many people use Twitter/X to focus primarily on their professional interests (see for example the data visualisation of themes derived from keywords in Mark Pegrum’s Twitter/X stream in the image below). Twitter/X can thus be used to spread information virally in many professional and academic contexts (as well as entertainment, social and commercial contexts). As a result, it’s a great platform on which to build a PLN. For ideas on educational and technological Twitter/X and Mastdon accounts to follow, see the Twitter (X) & Mastodon feeds to follow page of this website (which also covers a small number of accounts on other services such as Bluesky and Threads).
  • quick updates: Twitter/X provides a channel through which students, parents, guardians or carers can receive quick educational or administrative updates from teachers or institutions, and where they can pose questions or send replies.
  • online communication: succinct self-expression through Twitter/X may form part of a literacy exercise for students. Twitter can underpin a number of different kinds of online interaction between students, ranging from collaborative story writing to cross-cultural pen pal partnerships as part of collaborative online international learning (COIL) or virtual exchange (VE) initiatives.
  • developing information/attentional literacy skills: given recent concerns about the spread of misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’, and about attention overload, on social media services like Twitter/X, it may in fact be an ideal platform through which to draw students’ attention to these issues and help them develop the necessary digital literacies to deal with them.

Visualisation of Mark Pegrum’s Twitter themes 2022 (Source: Tweet Topic Explorer, goo.gl/IrZZ6s; note that this tool no longer operates with the new Twitter/X)

A service with similarities to Twitter/X is Scoop.it, which displays excerpts of shared materials in a magazine-like format; for an example, see the widget from Mark Pegrum’s Ubiquitous Learning Scoop.it embedded on the mobile learning page of this website. It is also possible to cross-post from Scoop.it to Twitter/X.

For more guidance on how to use Twitter/X in education, see the following:

• • 10 Ways to Use Twitter In Teaching (Sue Beckingham/Social Media for Learning, 2018)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Twitter (Sue Waters & Kathleen Morris/The Edublogger, 2018)
  • How Can Twitter Be Used in the Classroom? (Janelle Cox/TeachHub, 2020)
  • Teaching with Twitter (Andrea Phillott/India Bioscience, 2021)
  • 7 Awesome Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom (Rock the Blog, 2024)
  • Teacher Social Networks [covering both Twitter/X & Mastodon] (Kathy Schrock, 2024)
  • Guide to Using Twitter in Your Teaching Practice (Twitter (X)/KQED, n. d.)
  • The Most Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom (TeachThought, n. d.)
  • Teaching and Learning with Twitter (Twitter (X)/UNESCO, n. d.)

For more guidance on how to use Mastodon in education, see the following:

• • Everything You Need to Know about Mastodon for Higher Education (Terminalfour, 2022)
  • Teacher Social Networks [covering both Mastodon & Twitter/X] (Kathy Schrock, 2024)

Last update: February 2024.