RESUMO
Background: Few studies have systematically analyzed information regarding chronic medical conditions and available treatments on social media. Celiac disease (CD) is an exemplar of the need to investigate web-based educational sources. CD is an autoimmune condition wherein the ingestion of gluten causes intestinal damage and, if left untreated by a strict gluten-free diet (GFD), can result in significant nutritional deficiencies leading to cancer, bone disease, and death. Adherence to the GFD can be difficult owing to cost and negative stigma, including misinformation about what gluten is and who should avoid it. Given the significant impact that negative stigma and common misunderstandings have on the treatment of CD, this condition was chosen to systematically investigate the scope and nature of sources and information distributed through social media. Objective: To address concerns related to educational social media sources, this study explored trends on the social media platform Twitter about CD and the GFD to identify primary influencers and the type of information disseminated by these influencers. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data mining to collect tweets and users who used the hashtags #celiac and #glutenfree from an 8-month time frame. Tweets were then analyzed to describe who is disseminating information via this platform and the content, source, and frequency of such information. Results: More content was posted for #glutenfree (1501.8 tweets per day) than for #celiac (69 tweets per day). A substantial proportion of the content was produced by a small percentage of contributors (ie, "Superuser"), who could be categorized as self-promotors (eg, bloggers, writers, authors; 13.9% of #glutenfree tweets and 22.7% of #celiac tweets), self-identified female family members (eg, mother; 4.3% of #glutenfree tweets and 8% of #celiac tweets), or commercial entities (eg, restaurants and bakeries). On the other hand, relatively few self-identified scientific, nonprofit, and medical provider users made substantial contributions on Twitter related to the GFD or CD (1% of #glutenfree tweets and 3.1% of #celiac tweets, respectively). Conclusions: Most material on Twitter was provided by self-promoters, commercial entities, or self-identified female family members, which may not have been supported by current medical and scientific practices. Researchers and medical providers could potentially benefit from contributing more to this space to enhance the web-based resources for patients and families.
RESUMO
Using large-scale, public data sources, this editorial provides a high-level description of educational technology trends leading up to and encompassing the year 2020. Data sources included (a) 17.9 million Facebook page posts by K-12 educational institutions in the U.S., (b) 131,760 tweets to the #EdTech hashtag on Twitter, and (c) 29,636 educational technology articles in the Scopus database. We provide a variety of descriptive results in the form of participation frequency charts, keyword matches, URL domain link counts, co-occurring hashtags, tweet text word trees, and common word and bigram frequencies. Results from the analysis of Facebook posts indicated that (a) schools increasingly used the platform over time, (b) the pandemic increased frequency (but not the nature) of use, (c) schools are progressively sharing more media, information, and tools, and (d) some of these tools align with trends identified by Weller (2020) while others do not. Analysis of tweets indicated that (a) discussions in 2020 revolved around "remote learning" and related topics, (b) this emphasis shifted or morphed into "elearning" and "online learning" as the year progressed, (c) shared posts were primarily informational or media-based, and (d) the space was heavily directed by a relatively small group of Superusers. Last, analysis of articles in Scopus indicated that (a) online learning is historically the most-researched topic in the field, (b) the past decade reflects a shift to more "open" and "social" topics, and (c) there seems to be a lag or disconnect between emergent high-interest technologies and research. Taken together, we conclude that these results show the field's preparation for addressing many challenges of 2020, but propose that, moving forward, we would be better served by embracing greater philosophical plurality and better addressing key issues, including equity and practicality.
RESUMO
It has historically been difficult to find reliable, up-to-date information about educational technology trends, such as what researchers are studying and what tools practitioners are using, thereby making it difficult for researchers and practitioners to synergize their efforts in meaningful, socially-responsive ways. In this editorial, I analyze titles and abstracts of 7708 research articles from prominent journals over the past 5 years to identify common topics-such as "online," "mobile," and "learning analytics." I also extract links from 51,496 K-12 school and 1317 university websites in the U.S. to identify common tools that they are linking to-such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, and YouTube. I propose that these sorts of metrics provide a baseline understanding for other researchers and practitioners to draw upon when situating their work and that they can also give us insights into areas that merit greater attention for addressing real-world problems.
RESUMO
Scholars, educators, and students are increasingly encouraged to participate in online spaces. While the current literature highlights the potential positive outcomes of such participation, little research exists on the sentiment that these individuals may face online and on the factors that may lead some people to face different types of sentiment than others. To investigate these issues, we examined the strength of positive and negative sentiment expressed in response to TEDx and TED-Ed talks posted on YouTube (n = 655), the effect of several variables on comment and reply sentiment (n = 774,939), and the projected effects that sentiment-based moderation would have had on posted content. We found that most comments and replies were neutral in nature and some topics were more likely than others to elicit positive or negative sentiment. Videos of male presenters showed greater neutrality, while videos of female presenters saw significantly greater positive and negative polarity in replies. Animations neutralized both the negativity and positivity of replies at a very high rate. Gender and video format influenced the sentiment of replies and not just the initial comments that were directed toward the video. Finally, we found that using sentiment as a way to moderate offensive content would have a significant effect on non-offensive content. These findings have far-reaching implications for social media platforms and for those who encourage or prepare students and scholars to participate online.
