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Note: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 are here if you missed them.

Can your research benefit from creating an online community? Since the focus of this session is education, lets think about how we could improve, and possibly change, the classroom learning environment. Here’s one for professors: Twitter.



If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it is a public real time instant messaging service. Why not use Twitter in the classroom? Some classes have, literally, hundreds of students, many of which don’t ask questions. They’re intimidated by the size of the class and are worried that they’ll sound stupid. So, they don’t ask questions. Twitter could solve this problem by giving these “shy” students the ability to ask questions by using their laptops or cell phones. They simply instant message their questions to the professor, the professor can review the questions and address them at the start of the next lecture or possibly improve the lecture for next year (or answer them in real time if he or she is feeling ambitious).

What Twitter creates is a 2-way street. By embracing this idea of equal communication, students can get the most out of their lectures. Twitter makes the professor more Accessible to the students. It would be an exciting Change and, ideally, improve Education by giving the professor another way to Serve the students.

Note: After giving this presentation, I was approached by a University of Toledo professor who shared that he is going to implement this idea in his classroom. Cool!

The people becoming involved in crystallography are coming from a more mixed background. I can safely say there are going to be more biochemists, biophysicists and biologists using crystallography in the future. As such, we need to develop a better, more user-friendly system so those who are less familiar with crystallography don’t slip up.

Note: In an effort to create an online community for young scientists to communicate, a Facebook group was created: ACA Young Scientist SIG— a result of a great discussion at this year’s ACA.

The unfortunate example would be the Science papers that were retracted a few years back. That was an embarrassment to the entire structural community. It made us look sloppy. There’s no reason for that to happen, especially with the availability of the internet. We have the unique opportunity to build a stronger, more efficient and more resourceful community online. Bringing about this kind of change is going to require some innovative ideas and dedicated people. Thank you for your time.