近年來社交網路服務蓬勃發展，吸引大量的使用者投入許多時間在其中，為了解在使用者互動過程中是否有學習情形產生，本研究檢視廣受歡迎的社交網路服務–推特，以推特社群內一位活耀的使用者–Tim O’Reilly先生為研究對象並在他同意下，以他於二零一一年十月一日至十月三十一日期間所發表的四百六十三則推文，以及六百一十七位推特使用者回覆的推文作為本研究分析的主要內容。

本研究方法採取質化為主、量化為輔，質性研究以內容分析法分析 O’Reilly 先生的推文以及其他推特使用者的回覆，量化方面以敘述性統計分析O’Reilly 先生每則推文的回覆與轉推次數。研究結果發現在每則推文一百四十字元的限制下，以及推特語法 (Twitter syntax) 與關注 (follow) 網路的支援下，推特使用者們得以透過對話來學習。而在對話中，可歸納出三種學習行為，包含：1) 分享連結與資源、2)提供答案與解決辦法以及3) 發表評論與個人意見。總言之，本研究顯示在推特上的學習具有：1) 動態，2) 不可預測與3) 偶發的特性，且通常主要被三種議題觸發：1) 專業人士分享的專業議題，2) 受歡迎的意見領袖發表的小眾與冷門議題，以及 3) 熱門且重要的國際性議題。

本研究首先嘗試從日常推文中進行實證研究，探討在使用者互動過程中自然產生的學習情形，並由研究結果得知推特上的學習不同於傳統所認知的學習定義，而歸納出上述資訊時代新穎的學習特色。建議未來仍可朝不同學習面向著手，例如針對提及熱門議題的主題標籤 (hashtag) 之推文，探討是否有不同的學習情形產生。

Recent years, numerous users spend a bunch of time engaging in social networking services (SNSs). To explore whether learning occurred among users’ interactions, this study investigated an active tweeter (Twitter user), Mr. Tim O’Reilly, on a popular SNS, Twitter, as the research participant. Under his permission, the researcher collected Tim’s 463 tweets as well as tweets replied from other 617 tweeters for analysis from 1st October to 31th October 2011.

This study mainly used qualitative methodology and supplemented by quantitative one. More specifically, the researcher conducted qualitative content analysis on Tim’s tweets and others’ reply tweets, and used descriptive statistics to calculate times of replies and retweets to Tim’s tweets. The results show that tweeters learn through conversations with the aid of 140-character limit per tweet, Twitter syntaxes and following networks. Three learning behaviors were generalized from conversations, including 1) sharing links and resources, 2) providing answers and solutions, and 3) making comments and adding personal opinions. To conclude, this study demonstrated that on Twitter learning is 1) dynamic, 2) unpredictable and 3) incidental generally triggered by 1) professional issues shared by experts, 2) minority and less popular issues shared by popular opinion leaders, and 3) hot and important issues around the world.

This study first tried to provide empirical evidence on daily tweets and investigated the learning taken place naturally among tweeters’ interactions. The results show that the learning on Twitter is different from the traditional learning that we used to know, and conclude the novel learning features mentioned above in the Information age. It is recommended for the future researchers to probe into tweets mentioned hashtags that relate to popular and well-known theme-based topics to see whether a different form of learning will be triggered.

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? Educause Review, 41(2), 32-44.
Alexander, B. (2008). Social Networking in Higher Education. The Tower and The Cloud, R. N. Katz (Ed.)
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education. JISC Technology & Standards Watch.
Barracuda Labs. (2009). Annual Report 2009: Twitter Trends & Tracking.
Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research: Free Press.
Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
Boyd, D., Golder, S., & Lotan, G. (2010). Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-43), 1-10.
Brandtzæg, P., & Heim, J. (2009). Why People Use Social Networking Sites. In A. Ozok & P. Zaphiris (Eds.), Online Communities and Social Computing (Vol. 5621, pp. 143-152). San Diego, CA,: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16-32.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2000). The Social Life of Information. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.
Bryant, T. (2006). Social Software in Academia. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 29(2), 61-64.
Burke, M., Marlow, C., & Lento, T. (2009). Feed Me: Motivating Newcomer Contribution in Social Network Sites. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 945-954. doi: 10.1145/1518701.1518847
Burns, A., & Eltham, B. (2009). Twitter Free Iran: an Evaluation of Twitter's Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran's 2009 Election Crisis. Paper presented at the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2009, University of Technology, Sydney.
Cha, M., Haddadi, H., Benevenuto, F., & Gummadi, K. P. (2010). Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy. Proceedings of the 4th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM), 10-17.
Chatti, M. A., Jarke, M., & Frosch-Wilke, D. (2007). The Future of E-learning: A Shift to Knowledge Networking and Social Software. International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 3(4), 402-420.
Chatti, M. A., Jarke, M., & Specht, M. (2010). The 3P Learning Model. Educational Technology & Society, 13(4), 74-85.
Chen, A. (2009). Friends versus Followers: Twitter's elegant design for grouping contacts Retrieved October 8, 2011, from http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/03/16/friends-versus-followers-twitters-elegant-design-for-grouping-contacts/
Cheong, M. (2009). 'What are you Tweeting about?': A survey of Trending Topics within Twitter Technical Report (Vol. 251): Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University.
Compete.com. (2012a). Site Analytics of Facebook. Retrieved Spetember 2, 2012, from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com/
Compete.com. (2012b). Site Analytics of LinkedIn. Retrieved Spetember 2, 2012, from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/linkedin.com/
Compete.com. (2012c). Site Analytics of Twitter. Retrieved Spetember 2, 2012, from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/twitter.com/
Crook, C. (2008). Web 2.0 Technologies for learning: The current landscape - opportunities, challenges and tensions. Becta: Manchester Metropolitan University.
Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social Software: E-Learning beyond Learning Management Systems. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning.
DeSchryver, M., Mishra, P., Koehleer, M., & Francis, A. (2009). Moodle vs. Facebook: Does using Facebook for Discussions in an Online Course Enhance Perceived Social Presence and Student Interaction? Paper presented at the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2009, Charleston, SC, USA. http://www.editlib.org/p/30612
Dohn, N. B. (2009). Web 2.0: Inherent Tensions and Evident Challenges for Education. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(3), 343-363. doi: 10.1007/s11412-009-9066-8
Driscoll, M. P. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Dugan, L. (2012). Twitter To Surpass 500 Million Registered Users On Wednesday Retrieved September 4, 2012, from http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/500-million-registered-users_b18842
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009a). Horton Hears a Tweet. Educause Quarterly, 32(4).
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009b). Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence. Journal of Information Systems Education (JISE), 20(2), 129-136.
Ebner, M., Lienhardt, C., Rohs, M., & Meyer, I. (2010). Microblogs in Higher Education - A chance to facilitate informal and process-oriented learning? Computers & Education, 55(1), 92-100. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.12.006
Facebook. (2012). Statistics: People on Facebook. Retrieved September 4, 2012, from http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.
Greenhow, C., & Robelia, B. (2009). Old Communication, New Literacies: Social Network Sites as Social Learning Resources. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 1130-1161. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01484.x
Grossman, L. (2009). Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the Movement. Time Magazine.
Herring, S. C., & Honeycutt, C. (2009). Beyond Microblogging: Conversation and Collaboration via Twitter. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-42), 1-10.
Holotescu, C., & Grosseck, G. (2010). Learning to Microblog and Microblogging to Learn. A Case Study on Learning Scenarios in A Microblogging Context. Proceedings of the 6th International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education, 365-374.
Huberman, B., Romero, D. M., & Wu, F. (2008). Social Networks that Matter: Twitter under the Microscope. [social networks, attention, twitter]. Computing Research Repository (CoRR), abs/0812.1045.
Illeris, K. (2007). How We Learn: Learning and non-learning in school and beyond: Taylor & Francis.
Jansen, B. J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., & Chowdury, A. (2009). Micro-blogging as Online Word of Mouth Branding. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3859-3864. doi: 10.1145/1520340.1520584
Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T., & Tseng, B. (2007). Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities. Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA-KDD 2007 Workshop on Web Mining and Social Network Analysis, 56-65. doi: 10.1145/1348549.1348556
Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x
Kane, K., Robinson-Combre, J., & Berge, Z. L. (2010). Tapping into Social Networking: Collaborating Enhances both Knowledge Management and E-learning. VINE, 40(1), 62-70.
Kittur, A., Chi, E., Pendleton, B. A., Suh, B., & Mytkowicz, T. (2007). Power of the Few vs. Wisdom of the Crowd: Wikipedia and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie. Paper presented at the Computer/Human Interaction 2007 Conference, San Jose, CA.
Knowles, M. S. (1975). Self-directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers. New York: Association Press.
Krishnamurthy, B., Gill, P., & Arlitt, M. (2008). A Few Chirps about Twitter. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Online Social Networks, 19-24. doi: 10.1145/1397735.1397741
Kumar, S. P. (2011). College students: Is Twitter Hurting Your Grades? Retrieved September 27, 2011, from http://hellboundbloggers.com/2011/05/17/college-students-is-twitter-hurting-your-grades/
Kwak, H., Lee, C., Park, H., & Moon, S. (2010). What is Twitter, A Social Network or A News Media? Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on World Wide Web, 591-600. doi: 10.1145/1772690.1772751
Larson, D. (2011). Retweet Glossary, Syntax and Punctuation Retrieved August 23, 2011, from http://blog.tweetsmarter.com/retweeting/retweet-glossary-syntax-and-punctuation/
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Leavitt, A., Burchard, E., Fisher, D., & Gilbert, S. (2009). The Influentials: New Approaches for Analyzing Influence on Twitter (pp. 1-18).
Lee, M. J. W., & McLoughlin, C. (2010). Beyond Distance and Time Constraints: Applying Social Networking Tools and Web 2.0 Approaches in Distance Education. In G. Veletsianos (Ed.), Emerging Technologies in Distance Education (pp. 61-87). Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press.
LinkedIn. (2012). LinkedIn Facts. Retrieved September 4, 2012, from http://press.linkedin.com/about
Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., & Bracken, C. C. (2002). Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability. Human Communication Research, 28(4), 587-604. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x
Madden, M., & Zickuhr, K. (2011). 65% of online adults use social networking sites: Pew Internet and American Life Project report.
Madge, C., Meek, J., Wellens, J., & Hooley, T. (2009). Facebook, social integration and informal learning at university: ‘It is more for socialising and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work’. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 141-155. doi: 10.1080/17439880902923606
Marsick, V. J., & Watkins, K. E. (1986). Approaches to Studying, Learning in the Workplace. In V. J. Marsick (Ed.), Learning in the Workplace (pp. 171-198). London: Croom Helm.
Marsick, V. J., & Watkins, K. E. (1990). Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace. New York: Routledge.
McFedries, P. (2007). All A-Twitter. IEEE Spectrum, 44(10), 84. doi: 10.1109/MSPEC.2007.4337670
McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2007). Social Software and Participatory Learning: Pedagogical Choices with Technology Affordances in the Web 2.0 Era. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, 664-675.
Milstein, S., Lorica, B., Magoulas, R., Hochmuth, G., Chowdhury, A., & O'Reilly, T. (2008). Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution: Communication, Connections, and Immediacy - 140 Characters at a Time. Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Murakami, A., & Nasukawa, T. (2012). Tweeting about the Tsunami? Mining Twitter for Information on the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference Companion on World Wide Web, 709-710. doi: 10.1145/2187980.2188187
Naaman, M., Boase, J., & Lai, C.-H. (2010). Is It Really about Me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams. Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 189-192. doi: 10.1145/1718918.1718953
O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
O'Reilly, T. (2009). Goodreads vs Twitter: The Benefits of Asymmetric Follow Retrieved October 8, 2011, from http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/goodreads-vs-twitter-asymmetric-follow.html
O'Reilly, T., & Battelle, J. (2009). Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On (pp. 13). O'Reilly Media.
O'Reilly, T., & Milstein, S. (2009). The Twitter Book. Sebastopol, CA.: O'Reilly Media Inc.
Online Education. (2011, April 21). Is Social Media Ruining Students? Retrieved September 16, 2011, from http://www.onlineeducation.net/2011/04/21/is-social-media-ruining-students
Online MBA. (2012). A Case Study in Social Media Demographics Retrieved September 5, 2012, from http://mashable.com/2012/03/09/social-media-demographics/
Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S., & Facer, K. (2006). Social Software and Learning. In K. Facer (Ed.). Bristol, UK: Futurelab.
Pingdom. (2012). Report: Social Network Demographics in 2012 Retrieved September 5, 2012, from http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/
Reinhardt, W., Ebner, M., Beham, G., & Costa, C. (2009). How People are Using Twitter during Conferences. Paper presented at the 5th EduMedia Conference, St. Virgil Salzburg, Austria.
Rinaldo, S. B., Tapp, S., & Laverie, D. A. (2011). Learning by Tweeting: Using Twitter as a Pedagogical Tool. Journal of Marketing Education, 33(2), 193-203. doi: 10.1177/0273475311410852
Rodesiler, L. (2011). Microblogging for Professional Learning. Wisconsin English Journal, 53(1), 52-58.
Rollett, H., Lux, M., Strohmaier, M., Dosinger, G., & Tochtermann, K. (2007). The Web 2.0 Way of Learning with Technologies. International Journal of Learning Technology, 3(1), 87-107.
Sagolla, D. (2009). 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form: John Wiley & Sons.
Sakaki, T., Okazaki, M., & Matsuo, Y. (2010). Earthquake Shakes Twitter Users: Real-time Event Detection by Social Sensors. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on World Wide Web, 851-860. doi: 10.1145/1772690.1772777
Scales, P. (2008). Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (1 ed.). New York: Open University Press.
Semiocast. (2011). Arabic Highest Growth on Twitter - English Expression Stabilizes below 40% Retrieved September 5, 2012, from http://semiocast.com/publications/2011_11_24_Arabic_highest_growth_on_Twitter
Semiocast. (2012). Brazil Becomes 2nd Country on Twitter, Japan 3rd - Netherlands Most Active Country Retrieved September 5, 2012, from http://semiocast.com/publications/2012_01_31_Brazil_becomes_2nd_country_on_Twitter_superseds_Japan
Smarty, A. (2011). RT Versus Official Twitter Retweets: How Are They Different? Retrieved August 23, 2011, from http://www.blueglass.com/blog/rt-versus-official-twitter-retweets-how-are-they-different/
Smith, A., & Brenner, J. (2012). Twitter Use 2012: Pew Internet and American Life Project report.
Smith, A., & Rainie, L. (2010). 8% of online Americans use Twitter: Pew Internet and American Life Project report.
Stone, B. (2009). What's Happening? Retrieved September 19, 2011, from http://blog.twitter.com/2009/11/whats-happening.html
Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Templeton, M. (2008). Microblogging Defined, from http://microblink.com/2008/11/11/microblogging-defined/
Trinkle, C. (2009). Twitter as a Professional Learning Community. School Library Monthly, 26(4), 22-23.
Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T. O., Sandner, P. G., & Welpe, I. M. (2010). Predicting Elections with Twitter: What 140 Characters Reveal about Political Sentiment. Proceedings of the Fourth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 178-185.
Twitter. (2011a). About Tweets (Twitter Updates) Retrieved July 10, 2011, from https://support.twitter.com/articles/127856-about-tweets-twitter-updates
Twitter. (2011b). What Are Hashtags ("#" Symbols)? Retrieved July 10, 2011, from https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols
Twitter. (2011c). What is following? Retrieved July 10, 2011, from https://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/108-finding-following-people/articles/14019-what-is-following
Twitter. (2012a). FAQs about Twitter's Link Service (http://t.co) Retrieved September 9, 2012, from https://support.twitter.com/articles/109623-about-twitter-s-link-service-http-t-co
Twitter. (2012b). Twitter turns six Retrieved September 4, 2012, from http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter-turns-six.html
U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology Draft National Educational Technology Plan 2010. Washington, D.C.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind In Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Warlick, D. (2009). Grow your own personal learning network: New technologies can keep you connected and help you manage information overload. Learning and Leading with Technology, 36(6), 12-16.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge: Harvard Business Press.
Werry, C. C. (1996). Linguistic and interactional features of Internet Relay Chat. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (pp. 47-63). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
West, R., Waddoups, G., & Graham, C. (2007). Understanding the experiences of instructors as they adopt a course management system. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(1), 1-26. doi: 10.1007/s11423-006-9018-1
Work, S. (2011). Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic. Retrieved from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-by-demographic/
Yardi, S. (2009). Social learning and technical capital on the social web. Crossroads, 16(2), 9-11. doi: 10.1145/1665997.1666000
Ye, S., & Wu, S. F. (2010). Measuring Message Propagation and Social Influence on Twitter.com. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social Informatics, 216-231.
Zarrella, D. (2009a). 5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter Retrieved September 3, 2011, from http://www.copyblogger.com/go-viral-on-twitter/
Zarrella, D. (2009b). The Science of ReTweets (pp. 22): DanZarrella.com.
Zhang, D., Zhao, J. L., Zhou, L., & Jay F. Nunamaker, J. (2004). Can e-learning replace classroom learning? Commun. ACM, 47(5), 75-79. doi: 10.1145/986213.986216
Zhao, D., & Rosson, M. B. (2009). How and Why People Twitter: The Role that Micro-blogging Plays in Informal Communication at Work. Proceedings of the ACM 2009 International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 243-252. doi: 10.1145/1531674.1531710