Abstract:

Microblogging is a form of online communication which users beam short texts via instant messages, emails, or text messaging. Microblogging can be considered as integration of blogging, text messaging and social networking. Some of the more well-known microblogging services are Twitter, Cirip, Tumblr, Pownce, and Jaiku. They allow users to create an account and post short text messages, Web links, audio clips and photos. Each post is limited to 140-200 characters. “Twitter by far is the most popular microblogging site with 3.3 million users and will be referred to most often throughout this paper” [1, p. 186]. In the area of education, several researchers have pointed out the benefits of using Twitter in language learning. Using Twitter in a language course has the potential to change the passive atmosphere of a classroom to a dynamic one. Besides exploring collaborative writing, it also promotes writing as a fun activity. It can also foster editing skills and develop literacy skills while giving learners a chance to record their cognitive trails and then use them to reflect on their work. Students can use Tweets to send out questions and observations to the group while engaged in classroom activities. It gives the students a sense of what a person is like outside of the classroom (they end up being a lot more comfortable with classroom discourse). Having said that, using Twitter in a language course is a new phenomenon. Therefore, this paper will report a comprehensive review of literature on current research work that uses Twitter as an educational tool to advance learning.

Keywords:

Microblogging, Twitter, Learning