The theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoP) is often used for framing research into online communities. However, there is an absence of measures and empirical work that evaluates knowledge-sharing within such communities. This represents a substantial gap in our understanding of informal learning for diverse people and in the case…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore beginning teachers' diverse challenges and how these are related to self-directed professional learning through social media. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a content analysis of 2,445 "New Teacher" tagged posts shared in the r/Teachers subreddit. With 1,246 posts…

Providing coaching to participants in inquiry-based online discussions contributes to developing cognitive presence (CP) and higher-order thinking. However, a primary issue limiting quality and timely coaching is instructors' lack of tools to efficiently identify CP phases in massive discussion transcripts and effectively assess learners'…

Scholars have often highlighted the intrinsic features of technology to support the generation and sharing of ideas (Craft 2011). By studying user interactions within informal online communities, researcher can elucidate the ways technology impacts creativity and learning within these groups. This qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon…

This study investigated Turkish Language teachers' posts in a Facebook group regarding professional development during an academic year. This study was designed to be a case study, which employed qualitative research methods. The teachers whose posts were the most relevant to professional development were selected among the three Facebook groups…

In recent years, the use of asynchronous discussion forums in online learning has increased rapidly. In earlier studies, content analysis is the most-used research method in exploring the discussion transcripts. However, conventional content analysis is a time-consuming task and requires experienced coders. There is a need for an automated…

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has ignited debates regarding its potential benefits and detriments for education. Despite widespread discussions, insights into GenAI's impact on education have been limited because early studies have often been narrow in scope and focused on specific contexts. Therefore, the purpose of…

This article investigates the impact of educational contexts on automatic classification of online discussion messages according to cognitive presence, an essential construct of the community of inquiry model. In particular, the work reported in the article analyzed online discussion messages written in Brazilian Portuguese from two different…

In the last decade, social media have become important tools for educator professional development, learning and community. While education has traditionally proven to be an isolating profession, technologies such as Twitter offer opportunities for educators to collaborate beyond their school, district, region and nation. Education-related Twitter…

In the context of an ever-increasing use of social networks, researchers have studied their use in higher education and the development of communities of practice in formal and informal virtual learning environments. However, no research so far has linked non-institutional group chats and (situated) learning as part of interpreter training. This…

Social media use has spiked around the world during the COVID-19 global pandemic as people reach out for news, information, social connections, and support in their daily lives. Past work on professional learning networks (PLNs) has shown that teachers also use social media to find supports for their teaching and ongoing professional development.…

The purpose of this study is to begin describing the variety of social spaces that have been created on Twitter to support teachers and to describe the specific ways in which they vary. In particular, I have focused on Regional Educational Twitter Hashtags (RETHs)--hashtags that group tweets related to education within particular geographic…

Learning on and through social media is becoming a cornerstone of lifelong learning, creating places not only for accessing information, but also for finding other self-motivated learners. Such is the case for Reddit, the online news sharing site that is also a forum for asking and answering questions. We studied learning practices found in 'Ask'…

This mixed-methods observational study analyzes Advanced Placement (AP) Biology teachers' engagement in microblogging for professional learning. Data from three hashtag-based Twitter communities--#apbiochat, #apbioleaderacad, and #apbioleaderacademy (121 users; 2,253 tweets)--are analyzed using educational data mining, qualitative two-cycle…

This dissertation study investigates the mathematics education communities participating Twitter conversation using #MTBoS and #iteachmath hashtags. The mixed methods study answers following two research questions by using social network analysis and content analysis: "Who are the people fostering mathematics education conversation on Twitter…