The Interfolio Blog

Many educators wonder how new tools can be used for classroom or professional purposes, and there are larger and larger numbers of professors and administrators trying out new methods. Twitter has become an increasingly key tool for use in social media, and higher ed is one of the largest growing communities.

Recently there has been much discussion around twitter. The Chronicle featured a list of academics who are using twitter and discussed ways these educators are seeing value in the network.

There was also a detailed blog post on a professor's use of twitter to foster collaboration and conversation in class and beyond, and another blog post exploring the question Is Your University Using Twitter to Its Fullest Potential?

We also participated in a recent webinar from BlueFuego about twitter uses for higher ed, not just in terms of marketing but in engaging students and academic peers as well.

The webinar showed a number of interesting stats on how twitter is being used in higher ed:

- Twitter has grown 1392% in the last year.
- The tool has seen significant growth in the university sector in the last six months to a year
- 40% of university twitter accounts engage their audience in conversation;  60% just publish content  (which is still valuable for people up to date on news etc. )
- Many educators are using twitter to organize events, get groups of people together and meet campus and community members

We suggest trying out this valuable tool, along with the various Twitter-related tools that can help you get more of it. Be sure to follow us on twitter too at @Interfolio!