Professional Learning and Networking for Preservice Teachers on Twitter: A Social Network Analysis of #BantshireEd

• In Event: Uses of Technology in Teacher Development and Support

Abstract

This article explores one teacher education program’s use of a Twitter hashtag as a space in which to help pre-service teachers (PSTs) build their professional learning networks. After describing context around the hashtag’s use, we use descriptive and social network analysis methods to analyze a data set of more than 49,000 tweets sent over five years. We describe the nature of the traffic associated with the Twitter hashtag, the users who contributed to that traffic, and the interactions that occurred among those users. The hashtag facilitated opportunities for PSTs to observe and interact with peers, alumni, faculty, and various in-service educators. We consider implications for social media use in teacher education to build PSTs’ professional networks.

Authors

• Jeffrey P. Carpenter, Elon University

• Scott Morrison, Elon University

• Joshua Michael Rosenberg, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

• Katrice Hawthorne, Elon University