The “theory”.

Norgard, like most educational theorists, straddles a line between theory, pedagogy, practice, and arguably, culture. She also represents a good example of the divisional blurring between education and other disciplines. Touching on design, speculative futures, psychology, politics, among other disciplines, her feed is a mix of ideas that are not purely education-related though they are seen and conveyed through that lens. This is not always evident in the original words of Norgard’s tweets but is present in her retweets and promotional content. The nature of the tweets is split between original tweets (21%), retweets (39.5% and replies (39.5%) (Socialbearing, 2022).

In this medium, ‘theorizing’ is being mitigated perhaps by Twitter but maybe also by academic Twitter in particular. There is a convention in academia that “academic Twitter” is used during conferences to share updates from conference sessions, to share photos of the poster sessions, and to tag posts with conference-specific tags in order to engage with other Twitter users at the same event (Kaseda, 2020). Another common convention is using Twitter for publication promotion. In this case, Norgard’s original tweets were often promotional in nature from conference promotion to new publications and other academic work.

If we think about this use of Twitter, it appears that the way it, or the academic community employing it, mediates educational theory is by nearly avoiding it. Instead, rather than theoretical discussions, we see theoreticians like Norgard using Twitter almost as a conduit between their academic activities outside of Twitter and their audience, rather than their philosophical ideas. In order to get at the thinking, one needs to click on the tweet promoting the activity and move through Twitter to other platforms to view richer content. Norgard uses Twitter to post links to her content hosted on Google Drive (conference slide decks!), webinar registration pages on external sites, and to other social media sites like Linked In (these resources are often open, as well).

Transcript: “This approach really underlines if we are to do anything with technology it has to be value-based, it has to be driven by pedagogical visions, and it has to be based on human worth.”

Retweet of a clip of Toft giving a talk, by @lllplatform.

English translation: I still don't understand why we need grades in elementary school? what are we going to use them for? What will the children use them for? what does it have to do with the purpose of the public school? What about the good childhood life?

Example tweets:

Example promotional content:

English translation: If you (or colleagues) are interested in teaching in higher education, playful approaches, would like to be inspired to think (with) about future education and/or just want to have the opportunity to…https://lnkd.in/e9bWjMm9

Norgard is also consistently promoting collaborations between herself and other academics, as well as the work of organizations she is a part of such as the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society.

English translation: Can it really be that nothing substantial or fundamental has been written about what is characteristic of 'Nordic pedagogy/teaching' (in general or in relation to young people/adults)? That is, which educational values, approaches, views and practices are...

Example linked tweet:

Example retweet: