Preservice Teachers’ Microblogging: Professional Development via Twitter
Twitter has demonstrated potential to facilitate learning at the university level, and K-12 educators’ use of the microblogging service Twitter to facilitate professional development appears to be on the rise. Research on microblogging as a part of teacher education is, however, limited. This paper investigates the use of Twitter by preservice teachers (N = 20) in a face-to-face undergraduate teacher education course taught by the author. The participants completed student teaching the subsequent semester, after which a survey was conducted to explore whether they had continued to use Twitter for professional purposes and why or why not. In reflections upon the fall semester’s experience, preservice teachers noted several benefits to the use of Twitter in the course, including support of resource sharing, communication, and connection with educators both inside and outside of the class. During the spring semester, the majority of participants stopped professional Twitter activity, with many citing a lack of time. Those who continued use in the spring most commonly did so to gather teaching resources. The majority of participants maintained a positive opinion of Twitter’s educational potential and indicated intentions to utilize it for professional purposes, including classroom applications, in the future.
