Engagement through Microblogging: Educator Development via Twitter

This literature review examines the use of microblogging, specifically Twitter, for educator professional development. The review focuses on an article by Carpenter and Krutka (2015) which highlights the shift from traditional professional development (PD) to online platforms like Twitter, emphasizing its potential for real-time interaction and affordability. The methodology involves both qualitative and quantitative data from educators, including teachers, administrators, and professors. Challenges include the dynamic nature of social media and language barriers. The review suggests the importance of adapting research methodologies to keep pace with technological changes and utilizing translation tools to overcome language obstacles. References include articles discussing Twitter's impact on professional development, consumer behavior, and sentiment analysis, and the use of social media in political campaigns.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
Engagement through micro blogging: educator professional development via Twitter
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

LITERATURE REVIEW 1
1. Article:
Title: Engagement through micro blogging: educator professional development via Twitter
Author: Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Daniel G. Krutka
Publish date: 2015
Article Project History: The idea that has been put forwarded by the authors is that the social
networking sites like the Facebook and the Twitter has created a platform that can be used as a
professional medium to communicate with each other. If the historical failing of the traditional
professional approach is taken into consideration, it has to be said that high quality professional
development (PD) is bound to enhance the relationship between the teacher practice and the
student teaching (Carpenter & Krutka, 2015). The idea of the traditional PD was to engage the
professionals as the participants and share their experience and expertise that would eventually
lead to the success of the individual. In order to achieve expertise and participate actively in the
overall activities several holistic approaches have been made. However, these traditional
approaches were not much successful as the medium of communication was difficult. There
always remains an instance that there might take place regular instances and activities with
people that are completely absent when it comes to the new interaction media like Twitter
(Carpenter & Krutka, 2015). Twitter has already grown up to be a micro blogging site where
there are more 230 million users on a daily basis that has automatically created a professional
platform for many users.
Comparison: The high level of dissatisfaction of the traditional means of PD has given the
opportunity to think about new and innovative means of making a professional relationship with
the educators or other professionals. In the recent time, everything has gone online, even the

LITERATURE REVIEW 2
teaching and learning. It is a common scenario now that students are enrolling themselves in
online courses and are earning their professional degrees online. In such cases, the PD has great
scope in the future as well (Hennig-Thurau, Wiertz & Feldhaus, 2015). In fact, there have been
many evidences when it has been observed that the respondents in the Twitter platform show a
professional connection with the other people in consideration. The real time availability and the
affordability of this social media site have eventually increased the acceptability and likelihood
of the users of Twitter (Hu et al., 2013). Any respondent can easily react to others without any
kind of obstacles to hinder the process of communication.
Methodology: This particular paper has been designed using both qualitative and quantitative
data about the educators that include the teachers, administrators and the professors in the higher
education. In addition to this, the other professional users have also been included. The result and
discussion has been converted into major themes and then the entire discussion has been made.
The survey was conducted among 755 individuals but all the responses could not be taken into
use and only 494 responses were promptly related to the area of research. The complete survey
was conducted online that gave the opportunity of going beyond the boundaries and the
respondents from USA, UK and Australia were involved in the process of discussion. For the
data analysis, statistical means were adopted and the responses were turned into statistical forms
and were then analysed.
Problem: The limitation and challenges faced during the research was the persistent study of the
social media like Twitter because these sites keep on changing within a short period of time and
at times, it became very difficult for analysing the respondents who were taken into
consideration (Vergeer & Hermans, 2013). In fact, for the non-English speaking countries as
well, conducting the entire research became quite challenging.

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Plausible solution: the research has to have a dynamic outlook in its approach so as to keep up
with the changes in the variables that are occurring in the process. The upgrade that takes place
the websites are usually implemented to increase the privacy and the effectiveness of the
interactions which if studied carefully will aid to the research. Translation applications and
translators will somewhat solve the language issue of the project making it simple to understand
(Hu et al., 2013).

LITERATURE REVIEW 4
Reference List:
Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2015). Engagement through microblogging: educator
professional development via Twitter. Professional Development in Education, 41(4),
707-728.
Hennig-Thurau, T., Wiertz, C., & Feldhaus, F. (2015). Does Twitter matter? The impact of
microblogging word of mouth on consumers’ adoption of new movies. Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 375-394.
Hu, X., Tang, L., Tang, J., & Liu, H. (2013, February). Exploiting social relations for sentiment
analysis in microblogging. In Proceedings of the sixth ACM international conference on
Web search and data mining (pp. 537-546). ACM.
Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. (2013). Campaigning on Twitter: Microblogging and online social
networking as campaign tools in the 2010 general elections in the Netherlands. Journal of
Computer
‐Mediated Communication, 18(4), 399-419.