This is crazy. About one year ago Twitter reached a huge milestone: one billion tweets. Four months ago, five billion tweets were served. And now, in about one day, Twitter should reach another very important milestone: 10 billion tweets .

I read a few days ago an very interesting article about how Twitter in the classroom is boosting studen engagement. Studies frequently discover that greater participation translates into better academic performance, motivation, and a likelihood of adopting different points of view, which is why it is so striking that Twitter can foster that type of communication.

Classroom shyness is like a blackhole: Once silence takes over, it never lets go! In a class of hundreds, the fraction of students who speak up is small, and a still tinier fraction contribute regularly.

For schools hit hard by the recession, Twitter is an inexpensive solution to the growing problem of increasing class sizes. It is a tried-and-true platform to let conversations flourish.

Watch this video with Dr. Monica Ranking of the University of Texas at Dallas. The Twitter Experiment: