Technology is taking to the hearts of classrooms; tradition chalkboards and notebooks are a thing of the past, replaced with PowerPoint presentations and laptops.

When I heard that some professors allow live Twitter feeds to stream in large lectures, I found that in many ways it could potentially do more harm than good for the students and instructors.

If students were allowed to submit questions to a live Twitter feed in large lectures it could ruin the chances for a student-professor relationship to develop. If students never gather up the courage to talk to their instructors face to face, which most will realize isn’t as terrifying as they thought, they might not get the help they need to do well in a large lecture.

If lecture attendees rely on just posting their questions on this Twitter page they can become too dependent on using this technology. Tweeting their questions could become a crutch and enable them to stay accustomed to the avoidance of personal interaction with their best resource: their professors. This could also make it harder for students to appear as individuals in the classroom, instead of another face in an instructor’s 9 a.m. class.

I also fear that the questions submitted on this hypothetical feed could ruin potential study groups as students would no longer be able to identify other classmates who struggle with the same problems and decide to work together outside of class. Also, if this opportunity to tweet to a live feed were in the wrong hands it could easily be abused to post inappropriate or irrelevant information and serve as distraction to the entire class.

I believe allowing students to post their questions through Twitter will only hinder the potential of students and instructors from developing better relationships and become a more of an obstacle in a classroom setting.