Profession Driven: Teachers’ Genres of Participation in Social Media

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Technology in the Lives of Teachers

Abstract

This research describes participation in social networking practices as they relate to the community based professional development in a Mid-Atlantic University Writing Project. Using Wenger’s (2000) dimensions of social learning systems as the conceptual frame, this study employed an ethnographic methodology to explore how social learning systems may be constructed using social media within a community of practice. Online surveys, on-site participant observer reports, textual analysis of participants’ social media texts, and focus groups were employed. Aspects of multi-membership, establishing a shared repertoire, and the permeability of boundaries are examined; these themes help describe the affordances and the constraints in using social media as a tool for professional development for educators.

Authors

• Margaret Polizos Peterson, University of Maryland

• Thor Gibbins, University of Maryland - College Park

• Elizabeth Singleton, University of Maryland - College Park