Despite social media’s ubiquity in modern life, research on some topics related to educators’ use of social media for professional purposes remains underdeveloped, such as how use may change over time. This study explores educators’ self‐directed learning through social media by comparing change and continuity in how users contribute, interact and converse in two teaching‐related subreddits, r/Teachers and r/education. More than a million Reddit contributions spanning three‐and‐a‐half years comprise the dataset: 696 660 contributions to r/Teachers from 55 148 users and 339 618 contributions to r/education from 43 711 users. Learning ecology and affinity space concepts frame multiple methods of analysis, including quantitative measures of individual contributions, content interactions and social interactions, as well as qualitative content analysis of top posts and responses. Findings are discussed in light of the literature as change and continuity in Redditors’ participation patterns in the two subreddits suggest distinct spaces for distinct purposes. This study offers a starting point for further work to understand the opportunities and challenges of self‐directed learning in open and complex social media spaces.

中文翻译：

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关于两个子项的故事：与教学相关的在线空间的变化和连续性

尽管社交媒体在现代生活中无处不在，但与教育者出于专业目的使用社交媒体有关的某些主题的研究仍未得到开发，例如使用方式可能随着时间而变化。这项研究通过比较用户在两个与教学相关的子需求（r / Teachers和r / education）中的贡献，互动和对话方式的变化和连续性，探索了教育者通过社交媒体进行的自主学习。跨越三年半的时间，超过一百万的Reddit贡献构成了数据集：来自55 148个用户的696660对r /教师的贡献和来自43711个用户的339618对r /教育的贡献。学习生态学和亲和力空间概念构架了多种分析方法，包括定量评估个人贡献，内容互动和社交互动，以及对最高职位和回应的定性内容分析。根据文献对发现进行了讨论，因为Redditor在两个子Reddit中的参与模式的变化和连续性为不同目的暗示了不同的空间。这项研究为进一步的工作提供了一个起点，以了解开放和复杂的社交媒体空间中自主学习的机会和挑战。