This paper was presented in a Colloquium organized by Gillian Lord and Lara Lomicka at the AAAL, Atlanta (March 7, 2010)

1. Microblogging on Twitter: Social Networking in the Italian Classroom Enza Antenos-Conforti Montclair State University Follow me @iVenus (my PLN); @profeac

2. Twitter in L2 Education? Can social networking be transformed to educational networking? Proposed by academHacK(David Parry)

3. Social Networking as Educational Networking Twitter is computer-mediated communication that engages students in: communication collaboration a constructivist learning environment

4. Digital Conversation “Twitter-Style” Where? When? Who?

5. Mobile & Web-based

6. Synchronous & Asynchronous

7. Openness & Multiple Publics

8. Building a language community…

9. …that includes native speakers

10. Students will… engage in synchronous & asynchronous CMC engage in individual & community language use The Learning Potential of Twitter

11. Students can… belong to the classroom & beyond…into the target language culture Additional advantage…

12. Expectations: The Syllabus On Twitter each week, I expect you to do two things: post short messages on your Twitter.com account twice a week (on 2 of the 3 weekdays we do not have class--Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday). You will be limited to 140 characters in total, including spaces & punctuation. This is so you can practice writing about your routine within text limitations. to comment on someone else's tweet (entry on Twitter) once a week. Example: Let's say PINCO's tweet says: Sabato ho vistoil film “I am legend” You can reply to PINCO as follows: @PINCO vogliovederloanch'io. Ti èpiaciuto? You must comment to only one person per week to receive full credit. Once you get used to the reply feature, it becomes second nature.

13. Findings: Twitter as Social Media

14. Findings: Tweet Updates

15. Findings: Distribution of Replies

16. Findings: Tweets are… self-perpetuating generative authentic

17. Findings: Tweet Topics

18. Findings: Twitterers… interpret input produce output engage in conversations Good morning, is it cold? What’s the weather like? Good morning, yesterday makes* beautiful. Today is cold. What’s the weather like there? Sorry for the late (reply)! Here it’s humid and there is fog this evening.

19. Unexpected Findings 1 Good language practice Increased appreciation for language and culture Experiential learning

20. Unexpected Findings 2

21. Unexpected Findings FA08 Introduced to Twitter in FA08 Tweeted in Italian for 7 months, after course ended Now a bilingual twitterer

22. Further Investigations:E-twinning in L2 (SP09)

23. Further Investigations: The Twitter Backchannel in the L2 Classroom (FA09)

24. Links/Images Twitter in italiano http://blog.twitter.com/2009/12/ed-ecco-litaliano.html Twitter bird and bookshttp://www.distance-education.org/Articles/Top-75-College-Education-Tweets-133.html Elements of Digital Conversation http://www.mikearauz.com/2009/04/elements-of-digital-conversation.html How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live (Time Magazine, June 2009) http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html Elements of Digital Conversation http://www.mikearauz.com/2009/04/elements-of-digital-conversation.html Twitter bird and book: http://www.distance-education.org/Articles/Top-75-College-Education-Tweets-133.html How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live (Time Magazine, June 2009) http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

25. Grazie! Thank you! Enza Antenos-Conforti, PhD Department of Spanish & Italian Montclair State University antenosconfe@mail.montclair.edu