Grassroots Professional Development: How Teachers Use Twitter

Andrea Forte, Melissa Humphreys, Thomas Park Article Review retrieved from:

http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM12/paper/viewFile/4585/4973

Social Network Sites & Grassroots Professional Development

● Teachers participate in professional development via social networking to share ideas and grow as a teacher.

● The benefits of social networking depend on the needs of the teacher.

Social Network Sites & Grassroots Professional Development

● Teachers join social networking sites for various reasons. These include:o Social pressureo Access to experts in their fieldo Resources for new concepts

Social Network Sites & Grassroots Professional Development

● Teachers who might otherwise be isolated have access to an open network.o New teacherso Content based teachers

● Teachers can use technology like the following to help grow professionally:o Wikiso Blogso Twitter

Social Network Sites & Grassroots Professional Development

● The questions asked by this article include:o How are things like Twitter being used by teachers?o What kind of impact do they have on their teaching?

Methods:- Used Twitter to recruit participants- Conducted telephone interview with eight of the recruited participants- Analyzed 2,000 tweets of educators and hashtags

Purpose- Understand variety of educator content is on Twitter

Survey:

Step 1- Broadcasted survey on Twitter using #edtech and #edchat. Educators retweeted.

Results: Out of 1,549 clicks, 69 educators began the survey, and 37 completed it. All K-12+ were represented in the participants.

Survey Analysis:

- 78% participants have used Twitter for at least a year. - 78% (different subset) used Twitter continuously or several times a day. - 63% work in public education- 62% have Master’s degrees - Average years taught: 13.5

Survey Analysis Continued:

- Number of followers ranged 5-1,500- Average number of followers on Twitter: 334

- 32% of participants have multiple Twitter accounts- 75% reported having a personal account- 25% reported using multiple accounts as strictly

professional.

Four Findings

● How teacher’s positions can be affected by Twitter● Educational tweets, and what educators do with that

information● Describe the educators’ outlook on how to serve

students and what their concerns about social media are

● How “organizational cultures” as well as policies can affect educators’ efforts. How appropriate tools are used for educational use and professional development.

Finding 1

As a result of surveys conducted, teachers using Twitter reported that they followed and were followed primarily by educators outside of their immediate school building.

Explanations For Finding 1

● Larger potential for connections due to greater number of teachers outside of local teaching community

● Networking building for educators● Valuable resources and information● Creates a “personal learning network”

Finding 2: What Tweeting Teachers Hear and What They Do With That Information

Many teachers viewed Twitter as a new idea source and a way to learn about educational technologies. If teachers follow smart people and engage with them, teachers can learn great amounts.

Findings

Content analysis of Twitter content showed 54% of #edchat were coded as resource sharing.

About 25% of tweets from educators’ accounts included resources.

30% of tweets from educators involved response to others.

Twitter Teachers

Most non-educator Twitter users are “meformers” people who often include personal details rather than requesting or responding.Only about 2.5% of educators’ tweets contain personal information.Requesting information and responding to others shows teachers engage in discussion via Twitter.

Parental Concerns

Some parents were not open to their students participating in Twitter due to the outdated idea that it is all personal information, “meformers”Teachers appear to use Twitter professionally not as “meformers” but rather to “inform” their students and peers.

Privacy and Safety Concerns● lack of digital citizenship

o supervising young students online behaviors● creating safe spaces for students

o predator threatso inappropriate language

Benefits of Social Media

● modeling and supervising appropriate online behaviors

● real world application, productive online collaborators

● public exposure and recognition

Policies and Barriers

School policies and attitudes toward social media and other uses of technology in the classroom can be barriers and a source of frustration.

Policies and Barriers

Most teachers view social media as an online resource however they recognize the need for the creation of good policies.

Policies and Barriers

Often teachers feel it necessary to educate administrators about social media use. A blind policy that completely bans social media use does not work because the kids will always find a way around it and the students need guidance and learning experiences with social media.

EDA530-MCC-F14

Article review compiled by Ozark Lindenwood University Cohort C.