Using Twitter to Form Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

Social media has become an important tool for informal teacher professional development. Although there is a growing body of research investigating issues across the US, there is a lack of research on teacher professional development taking place on Twitter in Georgia, USA. In this research, the authors applied digital methods to analyze 5,425 entries from educators participating in a state-level, weekly, synchronous chat about educational technology (#TECHTalkGA) on the social media platform Twitter. Findings include that participants utilized the chat for organization, planning, and classroom technologies, with a predilection toward specific hardware and software topics. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.