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- PaperComputers & Education25 Jun 2026
Unlocking the potential of resources: An examination of sharing and uptake signs in educational online communities
Fitore Morina, Tim Fütterer, Jeffrey P. Carpenter, Joshua M. Rosenberg et al.
Analyzing over 2 million tweets from German teacher hashtag communities, the study found that only 2.2-3.1% of replies to resource-containing tweets indicated intended or reported classroom use. Higher user centrality and teacher status were associated with more positive responses and a greater likelihood of uptake signals, suggesting social media can support resource circulation but with limited evidence of actual classroom adoption.
Original abstract
Educational resources like teaching materials, worksheets, and other instructional content are an essential source of teachers’ classroom practice. Prior research suggests that teachers use social media to acquire and share such resources, yet little is known about whether social media interaction indicate teacher’s resource-uptake for classroom practice. Drawing on an affinity-space perspective, this study examines how teacher-oriented educational resources are shared and responded to in four German teacher-oriented hashtag communities on Twitter (now X ). The dataset comprises 2,064,799 tweets from 116,967 users and covers activity from 2008 to 2021. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses, we investigate the distribution of resource-containing tweets, the sentiment of replies, and replies containing language that indicates intended or reported classroom use. Results show that links and media are not shared equally across community types and that replies to tweets containing potential educational resources are generally positive in tone. Across communities, approximately 2.2% to 3.1% of replies to resource-containing tweets contain language suggesting intended or reported classroom use. In addition, higher user centrality and, in some communities, teacher status are associated with more positive responses to resource-containing tweets and a greater likelihood of uptake-indicating replies. The study contributes to research on teachers’ informal professional learning by showing how teacher-oriented social media spaces may support the circulation of resources and generate limited signals of possible classroom uptake.