Social Media in Education: Risks and Benefits for Educational Stakeholder
About this area of research
Social media is ubiquitous in the life of many educators and students. In particular, many teachers turn to social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook to share resources, connect with colleagues, and increase their professional knowledge and skills. Similarly, schools often use social media platforms to engage with their local community to share information. Projects in this area of research examine participation and engagement patterns to better understand social media use and its potential for informal professional learning. Also, projects can understand educational trends, for instance, during shifting educational landscapes (e.g., reforms, COVID-induced shifts to emergency distal education), that may inform educational stakeholders. However, social media use also comes with a risk as potentially sensitive data may inadvertently be shared and accessed by foreign actors for nefarious purposes. Therefore, data ethics perspectives and initiatives to guide educational stakeholders towards more responsible social media use are needed to improve students’ privacy experiences.
Personnel and Collaborations @ Tübingen and Beyond
Tübingen: Christian Fischer, Jan-Philipp Burde, Walther Paravicini, Tim Fütterer, Fitore Morina, Lennart Klein
National Collaborations: Martin Rehm (University of Regensburg)
International Collaborations: Joshua Rosenberg (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Jeffrey Carpenter (Elon University), Sondra Stegenga (University of Utah), Stephen Aguilar (University of Southern California), Alexa Fox (University of Akron), Spencer Greenhalgh (University of Kentucky), Conrad Borchers (Carnegie Mellon University)
Funded Grants and Projects
*Multiple related grants are currently under review/in preparation
Exploring how beginning elementary mathematics teachers seek out resources through social media, Herman and Rasiej Math Initiative. [$8,820, Grant awarded to PI Stephen Aguilar and Co-PIs Christian Fischer, Spencer Greenhalgh, and Joshua Rosenberg]
Twitter als informelle Fortbildung für Lehrkräfte: Soziale Netzwerke und Lehrerbildung in Deutschland [Twitter as informal teacher professional development: Social networks and teacher education in Germany], Program for the Promotion of Junior Researchers, University of Tübingen, Germany. [€14,225, Grant awarded to PI Christian Fischer]
Scientific Accuracy of Mathematics and Physics Content in Teacher Communities on Twitter, Seed Funding, LEAD Graduate School and Research Network, University of Tübingen, Germany. [€4,450, Grant awarded to PI Christian Fischer and Co-PIs Jan-Philipp Burde, Walther Paravicini]
Links to related projects: Twitter Germany
Selected Publications (as of October 22)
Rosenberg, J., Borchers, C., Burchfield, M., Anderson, D., Stegenga, S., Fischer, C. (2022). How educational institutions reveal students’ personally identifiable information on Facebook. Learning, Media, and Technology. Advanced Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2140672
Rosenberg, J., Borchers, C., Burchfield, M., Anderson, D., Stegenga, S., & Fischer, C. (2022). Schools' Posts on Facebook Systematically Risk Students' Privacy. Educational Researcher. Advanced Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X221120538
Rosenberg, J., Borchers, C., Dyer, E., Anderson, D. & Fischer, C. (2021). Understanding Public Sentiment About Educational Reforms: The Next Generation Science Standards on Twitter. AERA Open, 7(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211024261
Rosenberg, J., Burchfield, M., Borchers, C., Gibbons, B., Anderson, D., & Fischer, C. (2021). Social media and students’ privacy: What schools and districts should know. Phi Delta Kappan, 103(2), 49-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217211051145
Fütterer, T., Hoch, E., Stürmer, K., Lachner, A., Fischer, C., & Scheiter, K. (2021). Was bewegt Lehrpersonen während der Schulschließungen? – Eine Analyse der Kommunikation im Twitter-Lehrerzimmer über Chancen und Herausforderungen digitalen Unterrichts. [Concerns of Teachers During School Closings: Analyzing Communication in the Twitter-Lehrerzimmer Regarding Opportunities and Challenges of Digital Teaching]. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 24, 443–477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-021-01013-8
Aguilar, S., Rosenberg, J., Greenhalgh, S., Fütterer, T., Lishinski, A., & Fischer, C. (2021). A Different Experience for a Different Moment? Teachers’ Social Media Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic. AERA Open, 7(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211063898
Borchers, C., Rosenberg, J., Gibbons, B., Burchfield, M., & Fischer, C. (2021). To Scale or Not to Scale: Comparing Popular Sentiment Analysis Dictionaries on Educational Twitter Data. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM). Paris, France.
Burchfield, M., Rosenberg, J., Borchers, C., Thomas, T., Gibbons, B., & Fischer, C. (2021). Are Violations of Student Privacy “Quick and Easy”? Investigating the Privacy of Students’ Images and Names in the Context of K-12 Educational Institution’s Posts on Facebook. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM). Paris, France.
Rosenberg, J. M., Reid, J. W., Dyer, E., Koehler, M., Fischer, C., & McKenna, T. J. (2020). Idle Chatter or Compelling Conversation? The Potential of the Social Media-based #NGSSchat Network for Supporting Science Education Reform Efforts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 57(9), 1322-1355. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21660
Fischer, C., Fishman, B., & Schoenebeck, S. (2019). New contexts for professional learning: Analyzing high school science teachers’ engagement on Twitter. AERA Open, 5(4), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419894252