Introduction
Since the beginning of education, the concept of professional development has existed and continues to influence the educational practicum, including teachers and instructors. Over the years, opportunities for professional development, including networks for professional learning, have existed and largely influenced the teaching profession. Through these professional learning platforms and networks, various educators meet and exchange ideas and receive feedback for their services. At the same time, these networks have enabled teachers to gain new knowledge from both their colleagues and other education stakeholders. On a different note, technological evolutions, especially in the past decades, have integrated technology into the modern classroom. Notably, these tech changes have prompted the need for students and educators to interact and compete in a digital world. With platforms such as blogs, Twitter (currently termed as X), and Pinterest, educators are slowly navigating this world and identifying ways to prepare students more appropriately. Notably, these social media platforms have availed a wide field for professional development, where information accessibility has been heightened. Currently, interactive applications have been developed that are highly engaging and dynamic to help transfer digital learning into the classroom. Therefore, there exists a need for new instructors to learn the significance of using digital platforms to empower learning, develop new learning techniques, and tap into resources available within these sites.
Rationale for Using Twitter and Pinterest Platforms
Twitter and Pinterest exist as common social media platforms where digital learning has been promoted since their inception. Particularly, research indicates that Twitter has generously promoted community learning, accessibility of resources, and continuous interactions among learners. According to a study conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), media and information literacy co-exist as the main elements of digital evolution. With the recognition that social interaction sits at the forefront of fostering lifelong learning, UNESCO emphasizes the need for educators to adapt to these changing circumstances. Notably, blending into digital learning through social media platforms allows educators to sustain and continuously renew their knowledge through successive generations.
It prevails as a paramount issue for educators to comprehend how modern digital platforms match the learning theories that have influenced education over the years. According to the UNESCO report, social media platforms like Twitter play a significant role in enabling the continuity of both social and lifelong learning. In that case, people benefit from media and information literacy, where accessibility to resources, communities, and engagement with other stakeholders is promoted. Therefore, the need for educators to integrate social media learning into their profession cuts across different reasons. Particularly, through media and information literacy, teachers and instructors meet their colleagues, interact, and exchange ideas with others (Greenhalgh et al., 2022). At the same time, through platforms like Pinterest, instructors develop and gain self-reliance as a tool for teaching skills and techniques. Consequently, teachers find motivation and inspiration through these platforms, thus learning better ways to improve their classrooms and achieve better learning.
How to Find and Use Learning Communities in these Platforms
Among the major social platform for instructors to develop their professional identity is Twitter. According to Carpenter et al. (2022), Twitter provides an avenue for information and idea sharing, building of interactive communities, and finding new people. Notably, this platform allows individuals to connect with different people across the globe based on the person’s perspectives and preferences. In this light, teachers and instructors are able to build communities for learning through Twitter. Commonly, Twitter allows this level of interaction with features that enable individual instructors to choose whom to interact with. This includes enabling teachers to select fellow community participants by determining who to follow based on their careers, opinions, and ideas. At the same time, Twitter allows teachers to engage with other people to access different perspectives and viewpoints regarding education policies, teaching methods, and trends, as well as technology and its implications in learning.
Further, through Twitter, instructors can identify and create various school communities. Based on the UNESCO report, Twitter enables the visualization and creation of the digital staffroom. Through this internet-focused staffroom, visualized as #edchat, teachers and school leaders are able to share and pass relevant information. Furthermore, with Twitter’s multimedia tools like live video streaming and photos, content sharing and accessibility are made easy.
On the other hand, Pinterest communities operate similarly to Facebook groups, where they allow multiple users to share and collaborate on topics of similar interests. The Pinterest communities allow educators to connect with like-minded instructors, thus allowing for meaningful conversations on similar topics of interest (Huntington, 2022). To find a Pinterest community, an invitation link needs to be sent to the particular instructor through the Pinterest App on their phones. At the same time, instructors may create communities and groups on Pinterest, provided they have the app (Huntington, 2022). Through these communities, instructors are able to connect with fellow educators, post questions, participate in discussions, and make comments.
How to Find and Use Resources and Learning Strategies
Another essential feature of Twitter is the ability for instructors to access various resources and learning materials. Among the most critical educational resource on Twitter is the Digital Classroom, where instructors learn digital skills. Through the Digital Classroom, instructors can access digital learning resources like audio, texts, websites, and videos that aid in boosting their professional knowledge. Notably, to identify and access resources on Twitter, instructors may use # (hashtags). This is the most common way of interacting with other educators and accessing different types of learning materials.
On the other hand, on Pinterest platforms, numerous learning materials may be accessed by simply searching for the particular content that the instructor needs. By accessing the Pinterest website, the online board provides a variety of instruments that one may find relevant for use. By selecting the resources section, the instructor will find different avenues where they can learn through short courses, connect to a community, watch webinars for more knowledge, or join Pinterest’s creative strategy team.
How to Engage with Learners and Other Stakeholders
For both social platforms, their features are modeled in such a way that they encourage stakeholder and learner engagement beyond the institutional premises. Notably, stakeholder engagement in education remains a priority for most instructors. Generally, this promotes a culture of quality learning through the exchange of ideas, integration of technological changes in education, and more quality results. Therefore, Twitter and Pinterest provide reliable platforms where instructors, learners, and other educational stakeholders can interact.
Firstly, Twitter and Pinterest extend learning beyond the classroom. This is achieved by encouraging learners to share knowledge with their fellow students and even join communities where they can access vast materials and more diverse ideas in education. Engagement can further be promoted by the availability of search bars and hashtags (for Twitter). Through these tools, students can follow specific content and topics which they are interested in. At the same time, these platforms offer a venue where feedback is shared through comments and likes. In such an instance, students are able to respond to instructors regarding their teaching methods or level of understanding of the topics learned.
Additionally, Twitter and Pinterest allow learners and other educational stakeholders to interact with other classrooms or educational communities. Particularly through Twitter, instructors can develop their own classrooms where they can interact with various students across the globe. More so, these social platforms help keep parents in the loop regarding the status of their child’s progress in education. According to the UNESCO (n.d) report, through Twitter message alerts, instructors can interact with parents on a real-time basis, thus ensuring that learners’ matters are handled efficiently and in due time.
Policies Applicable Regarding Privacy, Copyright, Etiquette
The social platforms (Twitter (X) and Pinterest) are governed and regulated by policies that cut across privacy, copyrights, and etiquette. Firstly, the copyright policy for Twitter states that the content needs to be original to the author, thus forbidding copying of content material from others. The content also needs to possess a minimal level of creativity (X Help Center, 2024). The privacy policy covers information disclosure where private personal information is not disclosed. Disclosure, based on the policy, may only be viable if it is public user information like profile, people one follows, or public Tweets (X Help Center, 2024). Further, the X policy provides that etiquette is the modest language that needs to be employed on the platform. It warns against violent and hateful speech and child sexual exploitation, among others.
On the other hand, Pinterest offers privacy settings through which users can select and control who views their profile, content, and Pins. In terms of visibility, Pinterest’s privacy policy allows users to choose between public, where anyone can view the profile, and private, where only the approved individuals have access. For board visibility, the public setting allows everyone to view, while the secret icon allows only the invited people to view the board (Pinterest, 2024). Additionally, according to the Pinterest copyright policy, the user retains all rights and responsibility for the content posted on Pinterest. However, Pinterest may share the content with other people who can also save it (Pinterest, 2024). Further, Pinterest policy provides for the need of users to uphold respect, be thoughtful with their targeting, and take responsibility for their content. Thus, from these notes, it is imperative for instructors to comprehend the terms of service for efficient use of these platforms.
Conclusion
In conclusion, learning and comprehending how to use and rely on social platforms to build a professional identity is essential for novice instructors. Specifically, social platforms like Twitter and Pinterest act as the best sites for one to build and develop their professional goals. Notably, this capitalizes on the capacity of these platforms to accommodate the continuous changes in technology while embracing the digital state in the current education spectrum. Therefore, these platforms act as legible sites where new instructors can learn new ideas and meet and interact with new educational practitioners. At the same time, they get to build their personality through profiles and contribute to educational content by replying or creating Tweets. Further, a platform like Pinterest offers different learning resources through which new instructors can boost their knowledge.
References
Carpenter, J., Tani, T., Morrison, S., & Keane, J. (2022). Exploring the landscape of educator professional activity on Twitter: An analysis of 16 education-related Twitter hashtags. Professional Development in Education, 48(5), 784–805.
Greenhalgh, S. P., Rosenberg, J. M., Willet, K. B. S., Koehler, M. J., & Akcaoglu, M. (2020). Identifying multiple learning spaces within a single teacher-focused Twitter hashtag. Computers & Education, 148, 103809.
Huntington, H. E. (2022). Find, pin, discuss: Incorporating Pinterest to foster community and collaboration in online advertising classes. Journal of Advertising Education, 26(1), 64–73.
Pinterest. (2024). Policy; Terms of Service. Pinterest. https://policy.pinterest.com/en/terms-of-service. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (n.d). Teaching and learning with Twitter. https://about.twitter.com/content/dam/about-twitter/en/tfg/download/teaching-learning-with-twitter-unesco.pdf.
X Help Center. (2024). X Rules. Help Twitter. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-rules. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
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