How Elon Musk contributed to the demise of the #OakEd network

• In Event: Teacher Isolation in the Post-Digital Era: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Teacher Networks Today

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the creation, window of thriving, and eventual abandonment of the #OakEd (blinded for review) X/Twitter network.

Overview & Perspectives
This study builds on prior work on primarily online teacher networks (e.g., Authors, 2020; Garcia-Martinez et al., 2022; Trust, 2016) that has demonstrated how teachers have used various online spaces and platforms, including X/Twitter to establish collaborative professional networks that present various affordances and constraints for learning and development.

Methods & Data Sources
This study combines qualitative and quantitative data to describe the #OakEd X/Twitter network’s characteristics and history. Oak University is a private, residential liberal arts institution with approximately 7,000 primarily undergraduate students. Quantitative data include approximately 50000 tweets that used the #OakEd hashtag, and qualitative data include autoethnographic notes and documents from the networks’ two formal leaders.

Results
In 2015, several faculty members at one institution began using a program-wide Twitter hashtag, and the teacher education program broadly embraced the hashtag, with different assignments in multiple courses requiring or encouraging various uses, and multiple faculty and staff contributing to and moderating synchronous Twitter chats (Authors, 2018).
The hashtag was initially intended to increase pre-service teacher (PST) interaction across courses. However, some alumni began using the hashtag thereafter, as well as various Twitter-using educators unaffiliated with our institution. The goals for the network evolved to include increasing PST interactions across programs, among PSTs and in-service teachers, among PSTs and alumni, and between faculty and alumni (Authors, 2018). The Twitter hashtag, therefore, came to host a network and online networking activities among a variety of educators with differing degrees of affiliation or affinity with the university. During 6+ years of use, more than 50000 tweets were sent using the hashtag by a wide variety of education stakeholders (Authors, 2023).
However, changes made to X under Elon Musk’s ownership contributed to the eventual abandonment of the X/Twitter hashtag by the teacher education program. Many faculty, students, and in-service teachers involved with the program began expressing dismay and frustration at the state of X/Twitter, leading to the end of assignments encouraging its use, and the synchronous chats.

Scholarly Significance
This case demonstrates the instability of social media platforms and calls into question the effectiveness of establishing teacher networks that rely heavily on a single online space. In an era of almost constantly shifting digital platform popularity and features, and complicated ethics associated with platform ownership, a multi-platform approach to building teacher networks (Authors, 2025) may be advisable.
Prior studies of teacher education’s social and networking dimensions have primarily focused on relationships and networks within and among PST cohorts at one teacher education institution (e.g., Bjorklund & Daly, 2021; López Solé et al., 2018), and not the broader networks that might also incorporate educators beyond individual teacher education cohorts and programs. We also uniquely describe a primarily online network that was tied to a physical institution, and enjoyed an extended period of substantial use before being dramatically impacted by external forces.

Author

• Jeffrey P. Carpenter, Elon University