Propos intéressant de Kelli Marshall, chargée de cours en cinéma de l’Université DePaul à Chicago. Elle commence par faire la distinction entre des commentaires d’étudiants aidants quant à son utilisation de Twitter en classe par opposition à des commentaires qui n’aident pas. Selon elle, un commentaire aidant exprime une préoccupation ou offre une solution (ex: “Use another form of communication than Twitter. Twitter is hard to follow when responding to other’s tweets.”).
Elle explique cependant que ce n’est pas le cas de la majorité des commentaires qu’elle a reçu. Elle illustre bien que cette abondance de réactions viscérales (ex: “Using Twitter for participation was a terrible idea and should not be done again. It would be much better if the exams were the only grades.”) lui a tout de même permis de se réajuster. Elle considère néanmoins que la frustration des étudiants les a empêché de s’apercevoir des apprentissages qu’ils ont effectivement fait:
« No matter how much it might pain me to say this: The fact that so many students felt compelled to bash Twitter on their course evaluations alerted me that something was amiss. While remarks like, “I hated Twitter” and “Twitter is the worst thing ever invented,” did not persuade me to drop the assignment, they did make me rethink how I’d introduce Twitter on the first day of class.
What’s more, although many of them obviously didn’t realize it, students were truly learning via their online discussions. They were successfully analyzing Rear Window, expressing their opinions about Religulous, and considering problematic representations of gender in American Gigolo — all in under 140 characters. » (Marshall, 2015)
Kelli Marshall n’a pas abandonné l’utilisation de Twitter en classe pour discuter des films, mais désormais cette activité ne compte que pour une partie de la note de participation. Par ailleurs, elle informe clairement ses étudiants dès le premier cours de la nature des tâches qu’ils auront à accomplir:
« …There would be no Twitter surprises for this group of students. They knew from the start what they were in for: a challenging introductory film course that met Friday mornings and required a few hours of homework every week, including conversations on Twitter. » (Marshall, 2015)
Et il appert que certains d’entre eux ont effectivement développé des compétences numériques:
“Perhaps more rewarding, I am still in touch with some of my former students. We continue to talk — via Twitter — about gender, race, and sexuality in Hollywood. We exchange links, images, and gifs. So, yes, even though some students may not have realized it at the time, they were learning. And apparently, as my Twitter feed often indicates, some still are.» (Marshall, 2015)
Source: Marshall, Kelli, « Rethinking Twitter in the Classroom », Vitae – The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1er juin 2015.
