to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds

Faculty Focus: Twitter in Higher Education: Usage Habits and Trends of Today’s College Faculty
The paper is on a survey the authors performed of about 2000 higher education professionals, mostly self described lecturers and academic leaders. Of 1958 respondents, 30.7% use Twitter, while 12.9% reported trying it. Of those that do not use it, a large number report not having the time and question its educational use. The individual response to why they don't use it are interesting, with tidbits like

I have enough other ways to waste time, none of which are as silly as this one
I know how to use it, I've seen it demoed several times, but I don't have the neither the time nor the need for it. It could be useful if used in moderation, but most people don't know how to do that.
From what I know of Twitter and heard about the types of comments on it, I do not see it as a valuable tool for higher education.
Logical arguments cannot well be delivered in short bursts; students must be able to follow arguments in paragraphs.
Perpetuates poor written and oral communication skills
Seems like yet another flash-in-the-pan tool that will be obsolete in three years. Why bother learning to use it if it has such a short shelf life?

The comment about use in moderation is important and echoes negative comments made previously about it being a distraction - if people can't moderate it may be a distraction. Asking if the survey respondents would use Twitter in the next two years, the majority of respondents said they wouldn't use it in any capacity. Those that use Twitter use if for networking with colleagues, participation in conference back channels and keeping up with news and events. They received some interesting examples of the use of Twitter educationally. Those that stopped using did so because they were not finding much value and it was requiring too much time. Its an interesting document.

xkcd: Seismic Waves

This is an interesting look at people using Twitter to discuss events as they happen - and it shows the use of the service without moderation on the part of the users ....
xkcd is drawn by Randall Munroe and released under Creative Commons 2.5 License


Teaching PR: "48 Hours of Twitter" class assignment
In this post the author describes an assignment she set where her class group had to make five tweets over a 48 hour period. It sounds a bit strange and there is no stated outcome other than experimenting with the tool. Her post makes it sound like it went well and the students learnt how to use it from a PR perspective. The idea just seems a bit flat to me.


Digital Minds: 14 Days of Twitter Part One: “I Hate Twitter”
In this post the author tries to repeat the class assignment set above, but over 14 days rather than 2. My interpretation of her post is that it was a failure. Apparently the social media class had been using blogs well, but must not of made the transition. I think between these two posts theres a clear statement: using the tool is not an assignment in itself - it can just as easily work as fail.


YouTube: Twitter in the classroom?
A news vid put together by the University of Minnesota discussing its involvement with some local high schools. The teachers had identified that students were using social media technologies outside of the classroom so they brought them inside the classroom to improve engagement, participation and digital literacy. A short positive video, though biased towards the university.


TwitterVision
An interesting site which shows tweets as they happen on a world map. Only works for Twitter users which have set their location and provides not obvious control mechanism over what is displayed.


How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement
This is a newpaper like article with a video about a university professor who started using Twitter as a discussion board in the large lectures. They found that there were too many students in a large room for conversation to occur and Twitter enabled them to contribute regularly. Many students used laptops or smartphones and students that wished to have handwritten input could contribute it to teaching assistants at the end of the lectures. It allowed shy students to contribute and the discussion of topics continued outside of the classroom. Some students found that the Twitter record was an excellent study aide.


@manyvoices
This is the kind of thing you love to read about: students from classrooms in multiple countries writing a story together .... on Twitter. The students contributed their entry (of 140 characters or less) into the same Twitter account and the story ended with its 140th entry. The students came from 5-9 grade classes from across the United States of America and Canada and classes from the United Kingdom, China, Qatar and Thailand (all international schools). Its one of those ideas that makes your heart glow, international collaboration at that age and to create something together. The only advantage I can see in the use of Twitter over other services is the character limit, requiring each entry to be concise and still flow into the others.
I'll admit that I haven't actually read the story yet ...


ZNet Asia: Social network Tweets to classes
Another positive story about using Twitter as a communication back channel, this time in Singapore. The lecturer states that he insists that only Twitter is used in the classroom.


The PR Post: In-Class Tweeting in a Large Lecture Class
This page is a slideshare with voiceover. I think the best way to summaries it is the notes I made while listening

• in class tweeting for large classes only, have other means to connect in small classes
• some students mored focused, some distracted
• optional
• collaboration and interactive learning environment
• sharing information during lecture
• some student sharing  by direct replying rather than hashtag
• some won't answer in class, but will on twitter
• its another method of developing relationships
• enables after class discussion
• guarantee that someone will respond back
• remember "Google never forgets"

Examiner.com: Is live tweeting disruptive to the classroom?
A Twitter discussion on the topic by PR educators provides interesting information on the pros and cons of back channels


Inside Higher Ed: Tweeting in Class
A different take on audience tweeting during presentations:

Suddenly, I’m not just the one at the front just dispensing everything, and the students aren’t just sort of milling about doing their thing — we’ve actually got a team of people working together. And Twitter is the glue that holds the team together. W. Gardner Campbell

Mentioning that all students can participate during tweeting. Though at the end of this article they mention the danger of things getting quoted out of context, or just plain incorrectly.


Twenty-Nine Interesting Ways* to use Twitter in the Classroom
An interesting presentation of a few ideas of using Twitter in the classroom, most of which have been observed by now.


So I think I have enough now, even though I have finished that initial list yet. :)