Integrating #FLIrish101 in an LMOOC – learner engagement and pedagogical approach

Course specific hashtags are a feature of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) delivered through many of the major MOOC platforms. Their pedagogic objective is usually considered as a means to facilitate social learning and collaboration between learners. Research into the use of hashtags by learners illustrates limited engagement and integration within their learning experience (Veletsianos, 2017) and that MOOC providers use course hashtags mainly as a means of promotion and marketing. This paper presents the findings of an analysis of the use of the #FLIrish101 by a cohort of learners undertaking a Language MOOC (LMOOC) designed for ab initio learners of Irish. The LMOOC is delivered through the FutureLearn platform. The paper outlines the main findings from an analysis of the Twitter dataset to interpret the LMOOC’s learner use of the hashtag. The paper critiques the implicit research design, pedagogical principles and engagement strategies employed by the LMOOCs academic designers to integrate the hashtag as a purposeful means to support collaborative language learning outside the confines of the MOOC platform