Twitter for learning aims: student teachers' usage and perceptions

Abstract

The impact of social media on our societies and everyday lives has been remarkable. In education, and especially in higher education, social media have their opponents and supporters, but their impact on future generations, due to their influence, should not be neglected. That also applies to student teachers. The literature review on the topic reveals that the educational use of Twitter grows students’ engagement, creates broader affordances for collaboration and sharing and has a positive impact on learning outcomes. This research aims to explore student teachers’ use of Twitter for learning and their perceptions of it using an exploratory and descriptive approach. With that purpose in mind, the learning task “tweet a week” was given to primary school student teachers. In this activity, students had to tweet a weekly learning reflection related to the topics of the course. After the teaching period, a total of 1033 tweets were coded and analysed according to a reviewed version of a system of categories for the construction of learning through Twitter. Students’ perceptions of the activity were also collected through a final questionnaire. The results highlight students’ participation in the activity by sharing resources, doing their weekly reflection task and interacting with educational professionals through Twitter, and the students display a positive perception of those actions and future transfer. The discussion and conclusion argue for the value of Twitter in achieving learning aims and provide recommendations for further educational implementation and research.

This work is framed within the R+D Project EDU2017-84223-R Methodological strategies for the personalisation of learning paths in technology-enhanced environments developed by the Educational Technology Group (GTE -GITED) at the University of the Balearic Islands since 2018 and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science within the National Programme for Fundamental Research.