Student Teachers’ Attitude towards Twitter for Educational Aims

• Published in: Open Praxis
• Main Authors: Victoria I. Marín, Gemma Tur
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) 2014-07-01
• Subjects: microblogging; ple; social media; student teachers’ attitudes; teacher education; twitter
• Online Access: https://openpraxis.org/articles/302

<p>This paper presents an educational experience with 100 student teachers from different courses of the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain) in which Twitter is used for various different activities. The aim of this experiment was to explore student teachers’ perceptions in order to value their attitude towards Twitter for educational aims. Afterwards, students were asked to write down their reflections on an eportfolio. Data was collected from their eportfolio evidence, which was analysed to review their attitude towards the use of Twitter for educational purposes and for their future teaching and professional development. The conclusions indicate the need to conduct different educational activities in which Twitter is used in various ways. In addition, conclusions reflect on the real impact of Twitter on students’ learning enhancement, in order to improve student teachers’ attitudes towards social media in education. Therefore, this article contributes to the body of existing research on the use of technology in education, specifically to the possibilities of the use of social media and microblogging in Teacher Education.</p>