User:Kragw/sandbox

Twitter has been adopted as a communication and learning tool in educational and research settings mostly in colleges and universities. It has been used as a backchannel to promote student interactions, especially in large-lecture courses. Research has found that using Twitter in college courses helps students communicate with each other and faculty, promotes informal learning, allows shy students a forum for increased participation, increases student engagement, and improves overall course grades.

Twitter has been an increasingly growing in the field of education, as an effective tool that can be used to encourage learning and idea, or knowledge sharing, in and outside the classroom. By using or creating hashtags, students and educators are able to communicate under specific categories of their choice, to enhance and promote education. A broad example of a hashtag used in education is "edchat", to communicate with other teachers, and people using that hashtag. Once teachers find someone they want to talk to, they can either direct message the person, or narrow down the hashtag to make the topic of the conversation more specific using hashtags for scichat (science), engchat (English), sschat (social studies).

In a 2011 study, researchers found that young peoples use of Twitter helped to improve relationships with teachers, encourage interactive learning, and ultimately lead to high grades. In the same study it was found that out of a group of 158 educators, 92% agreed that the reason they use twitter is because of how user friendly it is, another 86% agreed that they started and continue using twitter because of how easy it is to learn, and finally, 93% said they use Twitter because it is free. People found that sifting through large amounts of data is challenging, however, with the simple nature of Twitter large amount of information became easily accessible. Much of this simplicity comes from the use of the hashtag, and the intuitive nature of how Twitter as a microblogging site operates. These features help to promote education outside the classroom on a global setting where students and educators are easily able create, connect, and share knowledge. This ultimately promotes growth and learning among students and educators, not just in the class room, but virtually and around the world.

Draft re-write
Twitter has been increasingly used in the field of education, as a tool that can be used to encourage learning and idea, or knowledge sharing, in and outside the classroom. By using or creating hashtags, students and educators are able to communicate under specific categories of their choice to enhance and promote education. Examples of hashtags used include "edchat", which connects teachers with other educators and people using the hashtag, as well as more subject specific hashtags such as scichat (science), engchat (English), sschat (social studies).