How Hashtags Help Build Online Classroom Communities

This week, I learned something that never crossed my mind before—how a hashtag can be such an effective educational tool.  

I previously viewed hashtags in the context of social media culture: as a way of joining trends, a way of getting attention, or a way of tagging content. But in the case of online education, hashtags are doing something deeper—they're enabling students to connect, to tag ideas, to be part of a community. 

Learning about how students used hashtags to track topics, share opinions, and talk with each other made me reflect on my own learning experiences. In big online courses, it's easy to get lost. Conferences can be long threads where it's hard to keep up with what was said. But hashtags give structure. They give a way of boarding onto specific subjects, scanning headlines, and even denoting emotion or identity in a discussion.  

I'm beginning to see hashtags as more than digital labels—they're small machines that have the power to profoundly affect how we feel like we're plugged in and belong in a virtual space. Continuing on in this course and having discussions, I might even start using them more strategically—not just to be seen, but to belong. 

Aastha