The assistant professor in the School of Education presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
On April 5, 2014, Assistant Professor Jeff Carpenter and colleague Daniel G. Krutka of Texas Woman’s University presented a paper, “The Assorted Affordances and Uses of Twitter: A Survey of Educators,” at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. The paper was based on survey research Carpenter and Krutka have conducted on K-16 educators use of Twitter for professional purposes.
The abstract of the paper follows:
“While the micro-blogging service Twitter is often stereotyped as banal Internet chatter, many educators have turned to the service because of its educational affordances and uses. This medium provides immediacy and brevity, and also diminishes temporal and spatial constraints, allowing users to collaborate based on shared interests. Previous literature suggests that Twitter is generally used by educators for professional development (PD), class activities, and communication, but research on use of Twitter by. Through our survey of 755 educators we sought to better understand how and why educators use the service. Results indicated that while educators utilize Twitter in diverse ways, among our sample it was typically used on a daily basis for PD purposes and by those seeking a personalized, immediate, and interactive experience. We consider implications for the future of education policy and practice.”