Twitter Increases Student Engagement:

Communicating in 140-character segments may seem to contradict the goals of generally long-winded academia, but a new study [The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades, 26 J. Comp. Assisted Learning ___ (2010)] has found that the two are less opposed than one might think. Students in the study who were asked to contribute to class discussions and complete assignments using Twitter increased their engagement over a semester more than twice as much as a control group.

The study used a 19-question survey based on the National Survey of Student Engagement to measure student engagement at the beginning and end of a seminar course for first year students. …

(Hat Tip: Annie Mathews.)