Group items tagged

Abstract - "Teacher educators have increasingly integrated social media into their education courses with aims including improving instruction and preparing students for a connected world. In this study, the authors sought to better understand the possibilities and challenges of scaffolding 60 pre- and in-service teachers across two universities into professional learning networks (PLNs) through a social media assignment. Participants analyzed educator practices, participated in, and envisioned future uses of teacher Twitter. Consistent with previous studies, education students were positive about the relational and relevant aspects of Twitter use. However, students' participation did not mimic the participatory cultures of affinity spaces often reported by connected educators in the literature. Instead, participants tweeted around deadlines and quit using their accounts for professional education purposes once the class ended. In contrast to recent literature, this article argues that social media integration for education students should focus on relational and relevant engagements and content, as opposed to attempting to build social media augmented PLNs for unknown futures."