How can Twitter’s Vine be used in education?

After 5 years of higher education graduating with a BA Hons from RHUL and an MA from Durham University, Chris has somehow retained an indubitable passion for education.

Now, the lead blog editor for LearnersCloud, a unique e-learning GCSE resource provider, Chris’s passion for innovative technologies has flourished and with it, a desire to share his own insights, reviews and experiences on integrating effective technologies within the classroom.

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When Twitter was first launched back in 2006, many of us were sceptical about whether it would last. What was the point of a tool that only let you send 140-character updates? Why not use Facebook which has a status function plus much more?

Many social journalists never expected it to hit the 5 million mark of users, let alone 500 million. But almost overnight Twitter became an online phenomenon. Today, over 340 million tweets are sent daily from teenagers, worldwide celebrities, small businesses and the largest conglomerates.

Twitter’s popularity has not gone unnoticed in the education sector either, with very few schools, colleges and universities without Twitter feeds of their own. What has been far more transformative than its use as a simple broadcast tool for news and updates is its new-found role in the classroom, offering students and teachers the opportunity to connect through short but meaningful snippets of information.

Like most online social networking services Twitter is constantly evolving to stay ahead of the increasing number of competitors. Vine is the latest addition to be added to its online armoury and while it hasn’t had much time to infiltrate the classroom toolkit, its uses offer some exciting options for EdTech innovators.

What is Vine?

Vine is a file-sharing app that enables users to record and share short video updates. Acquired by Twitter in October 2012, it copies its owner’s insistence on brevity by restricting video shorts to six seconds.

Founded as recently as June 2012, Vine was initially released independently as a free app on iOS but, with the support of Twitter, development is under way to bring the app to Android and other devices from as soon as autumn 2013.

Like many new apps, Vine experienced some teething issues at the start with service interruptions causing some to question its readiness for worldwide launch. Yet despite these initial issues, Vine has experienced immense growth with users tweeting and Facebook-sharing an average of 2,300 videos every hour.

The response to Vine has been similar to reactions to the launch of Twitter. There have been mixed opinions, with some believing it will be a useful addition to the social medium and others questioning the value of an app that limits messages to six seconds.

Regardless of where you stand, Vine has already caught on in a wide range of fields and the education sector is just one of them.

Will it benefit learning?

With so many social networking tools popping up you’d be forgiven for overlooking Vine but I would recommend taking a closer look.

Just like Twitter, Vine’s biggest asset is in its limitation. Restricting video footage to six seconds forces users to the point, enabling others to view messages instantly and in a way that encourages and rewards creativity.

Using Vine in Education

Since Vine’s launch, the tool has been most prominently used for advertising purposes and individual use, and has gone relatively unnoticed in education. But while many of us want to base our opinion on reviews, success stories and evidence of best-practice ideas, the reality is that the lack of uptake should not be seen as a deterrent but rather as an invitation to be innovative and create stories that others read about.

Vine may not seem suited to learning at first glance, but this tool offers various applications for use in education. For example, the flipped classroom is becoming one of the most exciting teaching techniques at the head of the digital wave. While many teaching professionals view the flipped classroom as simply tasking students with a lesson tutorial to watch before coming to class, the cyclical learning process is much more in depth and longer lasting.

Yes, students are tasked with either watching a lesson tutorial or reading an assigned piece of text before the class but students need to document and share their questions and comments with the teacher to identify misunderstandings, gaps in knowledge and topics or concepts that have caused confusion.

Social networks are ideally suited to this and, by combining Twitter and Vine, students have the opportunity to convey their thoughts and response to end-of-topic questions in a direct and more creative way.

The USA has had a head’s start on this and it’s useful to consider some of the ways teaching professionals across the pond have started to integrate Vine into their classroom teaching strategies:

Assign students the task of visually defining or explaining poignant terms

Integrate social tools to support group communication and collaboration

Encourage students to share their end-of-course experiences

Teachers can post Vine to spark debate, asking students to interpret the meaning of the message or elaborate on the post through their own Vine “Hands-on experiential learning is a catalyst for creativity and innovation”, explains William Ward, a professor of social media at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School. “Once students got over the fear of making mistakes, they had fun with experimenting, creating their Vines and seeing the responses of their classmates and even industry professionals”.

It’s too early to tell whether Twitter’s Vine will last or if it will fade after time, but it’s clear from early adopters that the use of short-form videos has the potential to popularise video messaging in the exact same way Twitter did to texting – by keeping it short, sweet and precisely to the point.