Pre-Service Teachers Engaging with Twitter as a Professional Online Learning Environment

Abstract

New ways of utilizing technology in the online space are challenging different ways teachers and students can interact with each other and learning content. Social media is one such technology that is a flexible and powerful tool in higher education; however, as yet, it is still under-researched. Twitter challenges notions of public global dialogue, continuous discussions in the online space beyond the four walls of a physical classroom, and the role of peer-to-peer interactions. This chapter discusses a project that aimed to address the need to understand more deeply what happens pedagogically in the classroom when integrating Twitter into learning activities. The case shared is of one undergraduate second-year class located in Teacher Education. The change over time with students' ability to professionally engage with Twitter demonstrated a shift in being able to confidently participate and critically think about this social media as a valuable online learning environment.