Engaging Graduate Students Through a Microchallenge: Providing Purpose for New Tool Exploration

Abstract

This paper reports the design, development, and implementation of a microchallenge in a graduate level online course. The purpose of the microchallenge was to introduce Twitter to students with a structured, but fun activity. The design process involved conceptualizing the week-long challenge with daily tasks aligned with course objectives. Technological tasks involved coordinating classroom based online communication tools to facilitate the microchallenge. The results demonstrate that students generally enjoyed the activity which fostered active and meaningful knowledge sharing, networking, community development, and learning practices. Implications for social media-based course activity design were discussed.