text: Twitter has been an increasingly growing in the field of education as an effective tool that can be used to encourage learning and idea, or knowledge sharing, in and outside the classroom. By using or creating hashtags, students and educators are able to communicate under specific categories of their choice to enhance and promote education. A broad example of a hashtag used in education is "edchat", to communicate with other teachers and people using that hashtag. Once teachers find someone they want to talk to, they can either direct message the person or narrow down the hashtag to make the topic of the conversation more specific, using hashtags for scichat (science), engchat (English), sschat (social studies).
  In a 2011 study, researchers found that young peoples use of Twitter helped to improve relationships with teachers, encourage interactive learning, and ultimately lead to high grades. In the same study, it was found that out of a group of 158 educators, 92% agreed that the reason they use Twitter is because of how user-friendly it is, another 86% agreed that they started and continue using Twitter because of how easy it is to learn, and finally, 93% said they use Twitter because it is free. People found sifting through large amounts of data to be challenging; however, with the simple nature of Twitter, large amount of information became easily accessible. Much of this simplicity comes from the use of the hashtag and the intuitive nature of how Twitter as a microblogging site operates. These features help to promote education outside the classroom in a global setting where students and educators are easily able to create, connect, and share knowledge. This ultimately promotes growth and learning among students and educators, not just in the classroom, but virtually and around the world.