DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEACHER-FOCUSED TWITTER HASHTAGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Twitter hashtags may serve as valuable means for teachers' professional development. However, given the diversity of hashtag spaces and teacher needs, teachers must assess a given hashtag and compare it to their learning needs and preferences before determining whether it would be helpful. To s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Spencer P. Greenhalgh
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2020-06-01
Series:Italian Journal of Educational Technology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ijet.itd.cnr.it/article/view/1161
Description
Summary:Twitter hashtags may serve as valuable means for teachers' professional development. However, given the diversity of hashtag spaces and teacher needs, teachers must assess a given hashtag and compare it to their learning needs and preferences before determining whether it would be helpful. To support this reflection, I examine data associated with 60 Regional Educational Twitter Hashtags (RETHs) during the first six months of 2016 to begin describing the variety of teacher learning-focused Twitter spaces and make distinctions between them. My results indicate that these RETHs vary according to their relative focus on sharing, intimacy of personal connection, and volume of activity, each of which has implications for professional development. The dimensions resulting from this study may prove helpful for teachers, teacher educators, and hashtag coordinators.
ISSN:2532-4632
2532-7720