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“My iPhone annoys me” How technology becomes entangled in teacher professional learning.


flickr photo by wicker_man https://flickr.com/photos/20262161@N00/3010724109 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

Social media increasingly permeate our everyday and professional lives. As in other professions, this is true in teaching, with many teachers ‘flocking’ to Twitter as their tool of choice. Many claim Twitter constitutes a ‘powerful tool for professional development.’ It remains unclear however, how this is achieved and what it is about Twitter in particular that teachers find so potent. Furthermore, as a mediated environment, technology plays a significant role, yet its importance in this context remains under researched.

This presentation will discuss the findings from a pilot study employing multiple methods within a digitally ethnographic approach. In particular a sociomaterial sensibility will be brought to bear in order to better render the activity of the non-human actors.

The effects of the non-humans appears to be more profound than might be at first anticipated. They coax, coerce, and cajole the humans, at times co-operating and collaborating, and at others confounding and confuscating.

By accounting for the non-humans, we gain a more rounded picture of how Twitter might be used for teachers’ professional learning.

[flickr photo by wicker_man https://flickr.com/photos/20262161@N00/3010724109 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license


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