Using Twitter to Help Learners Retain Knowledge

I saw an interesting post on Questionmark's blog by John Kleeman that I wanted to share with you.  Kleeman asks, “What is the best way of stopping people forgetting things after learning?”  His answer is to "ask questions over time after the learning takes place."

Kleeman states, "When you learn something, you connect two or more concepts in memory. And when you are asked a question about what you have learned, you have to search your memory to find the answer. This searching makes the connection in memory stronger, so in the future you will be more likely to remember what you have learned rather than forget it. If you’re not familiar with this important idea, see these white papers by learning expert Will Thalheimer for more information: The Learning Benefits of Questions and Measuring Learning Results."

"If your learners go on to another course or go back to work, it’s not always easy to reach them to stimulate their memory with follow-up questions. Here’s where Twitter comes in: it can be a great tool for sending follow up questions.

•  Have your learners follow you on Twitter, either on your main account, or on a subsidiary account made for each course.
• Post short questions as tweets to stimulate people’s memory. Remember, even thinking about the answer can help reinforce the learning. You could post the right answer the next day.
• Follow these up with quizzes (using Questionmark)."

 Read entire blog post here.

Excellent idea on an educational use of Twitter from the guys at Questionmark!