Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 57 seconds
I’ve been doing Twitter Scavenger Hunts on and off for several years now in my educational game design module. Now that I’m teaching a course on digital identities and literacies and intercultural learning, I’m modifying it quite a bit. So I’m just going to lay out some of the ideas I’ve got here and see if they develop over the next few days (feedback welcome).
- Students create Twitter accounts ahead of class (we discuss anonymity, which name and photo to use, separate accounts for class vs personal ahead of time). Students who have strong problems with Twitter can work in a pair with another person
- We agree ahead of time on course hashtag and account and we create them together. They know to use hashtag for each tweet from now on (and some will forget)
- On the morning of Feb 8 at 10am students start using Twitter by first using the course hashtag to find and follow one another and the course account @DigiGuardiansEg
- Students tweet out their altcvs (instructions here) and invite others to create “altjobs” or “altcareers” for them. I invite the world to participate and they also do this for 2 others in the class as either comments on their blogs or tweets
- Students look up two hashtags we plan to engage with later in the semester: #netnarr #engageMOOC and #marginalsyllabus and they retweet something they like or they respond to something. Possibly ask them to use quote tweet to add course hashtag so others can see what they’ve retweeted
- Students look at Chris Gilliard’s tweet about unbelievably invasive things platforms have done, and they retweet to class 2 of the stories shared which resonate with them…and they write up their own response to Chris G (adding hashtag #engageMOOC) based on something they know has happened or happened to someone they know or themselves. If uncomfortable sharing out on Twitter, they can share privately on Slack or ClassPulse
- Students tweet out a “guess what this is?” photo that they take from their phone – taking a photo from a weird angle for others to guess it. I invite the world to engage, and also ask them to engage with one another
- Students will have read ahead of time either Bonnie Stewart blogpost on digital identity or watched Chimamanda video on danger of single story. They tweet out a favorite quote from these and tag the author and #engageMOOC
- Tweet out quotes from my poem I’m Not Angry at You – parts they like or dislike or have questions about, etc.
- Check out the daily creates of NetNarrand tweet out ones they’d be interested in doing. If it’s quick enough, they can do it in class. If not, they can do it later.
- At end of class, they post a brief reflection on Slack or ClassPulse (I’ll decide ahead of time) on what they found most useful/interesting about Twitter Scavenger hunt and what they disliked which could be improved. I would usually ask them to blog this, but they have other assignments, so…
- (added later) I may ask them to react to this tweet by me
If this is true, it's truly outrageous (I should not retweet before I check, but couldn't help myself. Will verify in a minute) @Taskeeeners @sukainaw @Czernie @14prinsp @andy_nobes https://t.co/tcjPMWWC7E
— ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🌵 (@Bali_Maha) February 2, 2018
If you’re awake at 10am Cairo time (8am UK, midnight Pacific time, and sometime reasonable in the early evening across Australia) you’re welcome to join us (students LOVE it) or invite your students to participate. If you let me know ahead of time, I’ll follow you from the course account.
Also you can participate asynchronously by posting your own unique photos for my students to guess about…
This sounds interesting. On February 8 we will be on coastal Canada [Vancouver Island] visiting the grandsons in Victoria and house searching for retirement as a new way of being ourselves. Fascinated with your poem “I’m not angry with you” and need to reason through my American birth, my Canadian adulthood, our,(and especially Leslie’s) deep connection to her Canadian / Lebanese departmental coordinator who (secretly) could persuade us to stay here in the minus 25 C winter temperatures of the dying-economy of oil-rich Alberta just because it contradicts EVERY belief we’ve clung to since meeting in a “Native Plants of California” community college class in Oakland CA 1973.
We choose because we are assumed to be autonomous characters of 60’s San Francisco scene yet determined by the distant and persuasive call of odd “strangers” so unfamiliar and yet known as Maha Bali from Cairo–a city so incomprehensibly so big and so intimately connected that when our younger daughter visited she found friends from so far away there and who-would-have-known(?) THERE way her HERE?.
Here’s hoping your students find us and we can learn from them.
Another thing And it could be many:
Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference
Better Copy: https://www.colorado.edu/odece/sites/default/files/attached-files/rba09-sb4converted_8.pdf
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each others battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting
\
Thanks Maha
Scott
Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference
Better Copy: https://www.colorado.edu/odece/sites/default/files/attached-files/rba09-sb4converted_8.pdf
Thanks Scott, for sharing this.,xoxo
I would love to share a “what is it?” image ahead of time. Is there a hashtag I should use to do so?
I wanna develop hashtag w students. Will share once we have one inshallah
Wow! Love this Maha! How are your students connecting to #engageMOOC? Are they signing up for course itself or mainly via twitter? I’m wondering how best to link up.
Both. I’m giving them a choice over how to engage with it
Looks really good, Maha, lots of interesting things here. Hopefully I can be online to participate. I wish I had the time to properly look at all the things you do with your students to give me some ideas for occasional opportunities at my school.
Would sooo love to have u there… And I’ll keep posting ideas and hopefully you’ll find opportunities. You can also check out http://diglit.creativitycourse.org where I post some of my larger assignments in an easy to find way
Thanks Maha! Haven’t had time to check anything out yet but will check out the link. Really interested despite time limitated opportunities to take classes for these kinds of things. Hopefully this year I can find a way.
Maha, this is so exciting! I’m in North Carolina, U.S., so — 3 a.m. before a full day of teaching probably won’t happen. But I do want to participate asynchronously, and would love to contribute a photo. Is this scavenger hunt process something you continue throughout your term or for a certain number of weeks? I’m very interested in learning more, and perhaps applying a similar exercise in our Humanities courses or in my Digital History or Digital Identity courses. So looking forward to following your students’ activities!
Hi Ellen. I usually do the hunt activity for an hour during class time – but really, people can continue it asynchronously over time.. My main purpose for this is for students to learn some Twitter literacy without having to be taught any of it directly, and to have em together in the room while it happens so they can support each other with small tech issues
Thanks so much! These are very helpful suggestions.