Developing Trainee Teachers’ Social and Technological Skills: Using Twitter to Highlight Social Problems

Abstract

Training teachers means confronting them with challenges that enable them to develop social and technological skills for their future career. This article seeks to understand which social problems teachers draw attention to on Twitter and the educational arguments they put forward to address them in class. The digital sources used were also examined. The sample comprised 574 students of the bachelor’s degree in primary education at the University of Seville, and our research was conducted in three phases with two types of coding, open and axial, based on grounded theory. The analysis yielded 19 social problems, 4 levels of complexity of educational arguments, and 12 most frequent sources of information. The findings show a need to develop skills to improve the critical filtering of information obtained from digital media and the communication of social problems that can potentially be used in education. Our conclusions highlight the viability of these activities in promoting social media as tools to further knowledge for teaching