Tweeting Across the Pond

# Tweeting Across the Pond
## COVID-19 Emergency Learning Networks in the UK and the US through Twitter #Edchat
### K. Bret Staudt Willet, Christine Greenhow, & Cathy Lewin
### April 1, 2021

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# View Slides

[bretsw.com/site21-covid-twitter](http://bretsw.com/site21-covid-twitter)

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# Introduction

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# UK and US During COVID-19

<div class="caption">
<p>Image source: <a href="https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/" target="_blank">The Financial Times</a></p>
</div>

U.K. and U.S. have consistently been two countries most affected:

- Top 20 most infected

- Top 5 highest cumulative death totals (World Health Organization, 2020)

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# Emergency Remote Teaching

- **March 10, 2020:** US shifts to online

- **March 11, 2020:** COVID-19 named a global pandemic by the World Health Organization

- **March 20, 2020:** UK shifts to online

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# Emergency Remote Teaching

### Lack of preparation for this rapid pivot

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# Background

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# Professional Learning Networks

**PLNS are:**

- Interactive systems of people, spaces, tools, and resources

- Flexible and adaptable

- *Build-your-own* support system

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# Teachers on Social Media

Teachers adapt social media

to supplement and expand  their PLNs

for “just-in-time” learning

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# Teachers on Twitter

**Affordances:**

- immediate participation

- sustained interaction and communication

- informal learning

- just-in-time reflection

- access to mentors

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# Teachers on Twitter

**Hashtags:**

- Filter and organize information

- \#Edchat

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# Method

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# Data Collection

**331,538 #Edchat tweets**

4 months: February 1 – May 31, 2020

118,163 (35.64%) original tweets (not retweets)

**8,111 tweets** from 360 UK tweeters

**73,859 tweets** from 2,821 US tweeters

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# Data Analysis

**Natural Language Processing:**

1. Daily tweet count

2. Adjacent hashtags

3. Topic models (using latent Dirichlet allocation)

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# Results

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# Daily \#Edchat Original Tweets

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets

**Similar in UK and US:** #teachers, #teaching, #learning

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets: **UK**

**Much more likely in UK:** #UKedchat, #SLTchat, #metacognition, #pedagogy

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets: **UK**

**Much more likely in UK (although less than 3% of tweets):** #homeschooling, #homelearning, #homelearningUK

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets: **UK**

**Somewhat more likely in UK:** #edutwitter, #leadership, #teacher

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets: **US**

**Much more likely in US:** #tlap, #sel, #remotelearning, #distancelearning

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# Hashtags

### Top Hashtags in #Edchat Tweets: **US**

**Somewhat more likely in US:** #k12, #covid19, #edtech

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# Terms and Topics

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# Terms and Topics: UK

1. Administrators appealing to UK educators broadly for help with new ed tech

2. Administrators focused on obtaining resources for their schools and students

3. Finding new teaching materials

4. Teachers looking for classroom help

5. Administrators trying to support teachers and teaching

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# Terms and Topics: US

1. Searching with urgency (“now”) for resources that would help with remote learning in a K-12 context

2. Finding resources usable by a teacher to check students’ attendance during remote learning

3. Time-sensitive issues related to remote teaching

4. Educators’ search for teaching resources

5. Identifying more general resources for remote teaching and learning

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# Discussion

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# Expanding PLNs

Tweeters from both UK and US either sought specific help or offered support

Social media use likely to increase during rapidly unfolding educational emergencies

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# Expanding PLNs

**Bridging social capital:**
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1. Widening learning context

2. Hybridization of expertise

3. Mixing different types of information and resources

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# Same Space, Different Purposes

How tweeters used #Edchat differently is likely connected to their UK and US backgrounds.

**Language of the news media:**

- UK: #homeschooling, #homelearning, #homelearningUK

- US: #remotelearning, #distancelearning

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# Same Space, Different Purposes

How tweeters used #Edchat differently is likely connected to their UK and US backgrounds.

**Educational trends:**

- UK: #metacognition

- US: #sel

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# Limitations and Future Research

\#Edchat tweets represent a large and general dataset of education-related content

but #Edchat is US-centric

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# Limitations and Future Research

Future research should study hashtags explicitly associated with a particular country:

- **UK:** #UKedchat, #mathchat

- **US:** #michED, #iteachmath

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# Conclusion

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# How PLNs Change

More research is needed to understand 
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continuity and change in PLNs

across temporal, spatial, institutional, and country contexts.

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# How PLNs Change

Here, we contribute initial understanding toward 
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a transnational strategy

for supporting educators’ just-in-time professional learning

during global disaster situations.

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# Thank you!

**Twitter:**

- [@bretsw](https://twitter.com/bretsw)
- [@chrisgreenhow](https://twitter.com/chrisgreenhow)
- [@CathyLewin](https://twitter.com/CathyLewin)

**Slides:** [bretsw.com/site21-covid-twitter](http://bretsw.com/site21-covid-twitter)