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    Does Twitter Give Students an Educational Boost? [VIDEO]

    Twitter has been credited with -- and blamed for -- a lot of things. Supporters claim it fueled the Green Revolution in Iran and helped the Arab Spring, critics argue it's hurting our ability to write and think. There's no consensus on the former, but a new study now argues that the second claim is wrong. Twitter may actually give students an educational boost.

    [More from Mashable: Different Instagram and Twitter Usernames? Your Life Just Got Easier]

    Christina Greenhow, an assistant professor of education at Michigan State University, discovered that students using the microblogging service as part of their education are more engaged and have higher grades. In fact, she considers it "a new literary practice," as she explains in her study "Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New form of Literary Practice."

    SEE ALSO: Twitter Blocks Neo-Nazis Following German Police Request

    [More from Mashable: Disney’s First Latina Princess Draws Criticism on Twitter]

    Greenhow taught a class that required each student to have a Twitter account that was used in different ways throughout the semester. She noticed students were more engaged than in the twitter-less past.

    Check out the details of this new study in the video above.

    Do you think Twitter is a good thing for young students? Or does it actually hurt their grammar and literary skills?

    Photo courtesy of Flickr, eldh.

    This story originally published on Mashable here.

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