The Future of Education

For over two decades, social media has increasingly become a powerful tool for professional learning for teachers due to the ability for teachers to bridge and bond across the world (Kelly & Antonio, 2016; Marcia & Garcia, 2016; Trust, Krutka, & Carpenter, 2016).  The use of social media and other technology tools has allowed teachers to develop professional networks to enhance their practice regardless of location and proximity with peers in such a network. Understanding how and why teachers who pursue expertise may bridge with peers in informally developed online learning communities is important in our understanding of how teachers form social capital through social media. The collective case study design was chosen to explore how teachers use social media to bond and bridge to create social capital.  The qualitative collective case study focused on the social media presence of teachers followed by others for their teaching expertise. Three research questions were formed to drive the study. The questions were directly related to questions suggested in multiple studies to better understand teachers’ professional learning activities in informally developed online learning communities, as well as more formal groups such as professional learning communities (Lantz-Andersson, Lundin, Selwyn, 2018; van Brommel, Randahl, Liljekvist, & Ruthven, 2020).  Findings demonstrated teachers are savvy in how they use social media to increase their own expertise. They are wise and efficient consumers, who engage for specific reasons. Additionally, there was a surprising lack of community built around platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. The most interesting element is the monetization of their knowledge the teachers bring to the platforms.

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