The community of foreign language teachers on Twitter

Pamela M. Wesely, The University of IowaWAFLT 2011 Summer Institute, August 4, 2011

Outline of PresentationOutline of Presentation

Intro discussion: What do you think of Twitter?

Defining our professional development communities

What I did to gather evidence about FL teachers on Twitter

What I found

Questions and further discussion

What do you think of Twitter?

What does a computer What does a computer know about being a know about being a

flower?flower?

What does a computer What does a computer know about being a know about being a

flower?flower?

Or…what does Twitter Or…what does Twitter know about foreign know about foreign language teaching?language teaching?

List five things that you know about Twitter on a

piece of paper.

Share them with a Share them with a person person

sitting near you.sitting near you.

List five things that you know about Twitter on a

piece of paper.

So what exactly is Twitter?

Web 2.0 Brief ReviewWeb 2.0 Brief ReviewWeb 1.0

Read-only

Passive

One-way flow of information

Examples: static websites only changed by “owner” (personal or corporate pages); in classes, often used in Webquests or other information-gathering activities

Web 2.0

Read-and-write

Interactive

Two-way flow of information

Examples: social networks (Facebook, NING); media sharing (Flickr, Youtube); social bookmarking (Diigo, Delicious); blogs, RSS feeds, microblogs

Twitter definitionTwitter definition 140-character posts: “Preparing my

presentation for the WAFLT conference, going to be Skyping in!”

Or a link: “Here’s the conference webpage of where I’ll be presenting tomorrow at WAFLT: http://bit.ly/pNcNoN”

# is a hashtag

#langchat

#edchat

Twitter definitionTwitter definition

Twitter definitionTwitter definition

Defining our professional

development communities

A question for you: What A question for you: What is a PLC to you? is a PLC to you?

Defining our Defining our professional professional

communitiescommunities

A question for you: What A question for you: What is a PLC to you? is a PLC to you?

How about a PLN?How about a PLN?

Defining our Defining our professional professional

communitiescommunities

Community of Practice:Community of Practice:

“groups of people who share a “groups of people who share a

concern, a set of problems, or a concern, a set of problems, or a

passion about a topic, and who passion about a topic, and who

deepen their knowledge and deepen their knowledge and

expertise in this area by interacting expertise in this area by interacting

on an ongoing basis.” (Wenger)on an ongoing basis.” (Wenger)

Defining our Defining our professional professional

communitiescommunities

What I did to gather evidence

about FL teachers on

Twitter

My Research My Research QuestionsQuestions

1. What are these communities of practice like?

2. How do participant teachers describe their attitudes about and experiences with these communities?

Data SourcesData Sources Researcher participant observation in

the general Twitterverse from October 2010 to the present

Researcher participant observation in #langchat conversations every Thursday night from January 2011 to present

Interviews with nine K-12 US FL teachers who are on Twitter, April 2011

Interview ParticipantsInterview Participants

(some of) What I found

These teachers are These teachers are focused on FL and focused on FL and

technologytechnology Twitter has primarily been used by community

members as a way to share resources related to language teaching, the target culture(s), and other types of language tips and tricks.

The members of the community are early adopters who seek technological innovation in a number of different ways, and they are very competent in navigating newer technologies.

These teachers are These teachers are dealing with isolationdealing with isolation

Many of the community members are either objectively isolated (i.e. only foreign language instructor in the district), or perceived that they were isolated, and they participate in this community for the purpose of creating relationships that would give them the colleagues they didn’t feel they had.

Relationships on Relationships on TwitterTwitter

The community members described a variety of supportive and sustained relationships that they had created with one another that were purely Twitter-mediated.

The community members also described a variety of relationships that began on Twitter but then extended into face-to-face, no longer purely computer-mediated, hybrid relationships.

Learning on TwitterLearning on Twitter Twitter, particularly the hashtag chats, are the site of a great deal of

creation and contributions to a knowledge base.This exchange on #langchat: A: and students can always earn back half the points they lost by correcting afterward, with no limit on chancesB: how are "points" a valid assessment? points have nothing to do with proficiency in a language. [B’s statement was retweeted several times, essentially echoed by other participants]C: Grades do not reflect anything.A:I understand the sentiment, but it's counterproductive in the way classrooms are forced to workA: Listen, I would love more than anyone to eliminate grades altogether. I have the most relaxed grading and late

policy in school.A: But the fact is I teach at a college-prep school and I have to assign points for production regardless of what I

wish I could do.B: no reason to defend, i think we can all agree that proficiency and grades don't mesh. A: I understand, really, but I also need to keep students and parents on my sidePam: Regarding parent/student expectations - it weighs very heavy in some contexts - not at all in others. That's

been my experience.A: In advanced electives when all the potential valedictorians are in my class, VERY heavily.

An important characteristic of the community is also the fact that smaller groups find each other and break off according to their interests, to create different collaboration groups to work on individual topics and initiatives.

The Twitter The Twitter transformationtransformation

Joining Twitter and participating in this community has been transformative for these teachers, both professionally in their practice and personally in terms of their motivation to teach.

The Twitter The Twitter transformationtransformation

Joining Twitter and participating in this community has been transformative for these teachers, both professionally in their practice and personally in terms of their motivation to teach.

…so what about you guys?

Questions?Questions?

Contact information:Pamela M. Wesely, University of Iowa,

pamela-wesely@uiowa.edu, 319-335-5261@pamwesely