Asking questions on social media acts as a stimulus for professional learning among educators, while the answers can offer them valuable resources. Framed by the concept of digital social support and using a cross-cultural comparative approach, we investigate what type of digital social support educators seek when using educational social media spaces, and what they receive from other users who answer their questions. Analyzing 2,274 tweets and 2,020 replies from two hashtags popular among German and US teachers, #twlz and #teachertwitter, we find that educators mainly seek instrumental support (e.g. materials). Yet what is being sought influences the likelihood of getting the desired response, not the user's characteristics. Differences emerge between the two hashtags in the kinds of support educators seek and the way educators respond to requests. The findings highlight the need for educators to possess digital competencies to fully utilize social media spaces.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体中教育工作者的数字社会支持：#teachertwitter 和 #twlz 中推文和回复的国际比较研究


在社交媒体上提问可以刺激教育工作者的专业学习，而答案可以为他们提供宝贵的资源。以数字社会支持的概念为框架，并使用跨文化比较方法，我们调查教育者在使用教育社交媒体空间时寻求什么类型的数字社会支持，以及他们从回答问题的其他用户那里得到什么。通过分析来自德国和美国教师中流行的两个主题标签#twlz 和#teachertwitter 的 2,274 条推文和 2,020 条回复，我们发现教育工作者主要寻求工具性支持（例如材料）。然而，所寻求的内容会影响获得所需响应的可能性，而不是用户的特征。这两个标签之间在教育工作者寻求的支持类型以及教育工作者响应请求的方式方面存在差异。研究结果强调了教育工作者需要拥有数字能力才能充分利用社交媒体空间。