Introduction

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (Australian Institute for Teaching & School Leadership, 2017) list seven standards that teachers must routinely meet to qualify for registration, including engagement in professional learning, and engagement with colleagues, parents/carers and their community (Standards 6 & 7). In Victoria, Australia, early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers and primary school teachers work in two separate organisational systems (i.e. the ECEC system and the school system) with their own regulations and processes, creating two connected but in many ways disparate sectors of schooling. Teachers who work within these organisational systems are rarely co-located and hold different specialist teaching qualifications, creating a geographical and professional divide. As such, the term ‘sectors’ and ‘cross-sector’ are used throughout, used in similar research when referring to different educational systems (Carr, 2012; Moss, 2012a; Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development, 2006, 2011), to reflect the diversity and history of the differences in early childhood and primary school provision that exist in Victoria, Australia. The divide that these differences generate creates a challenging environment in which to pursue professional cross-sector collaborations, despite the overlap that occurs when children transition from preschool education to primary schooling. However, given that both ECEC teachers and school teachers hold professional registration and must both meet the Professional Standards for teachers, they are conveniently positioned to work together to address the Professional Standards to advance their collective understandings of effective transition-to-school processes.

When teachers develop collaborative relationships across the sector divide, there are substantial benefits for children throughout the transition-to-school process (Dockett & Perry, 2006, 2007, 2014; Griebel & Niesel, 2013; Jerome et al., 2009; Moss, 2013). Such relationships disrupt differences in pedagogical thinking that exist due to each organisational system’s distinct curriculum, teaching and assessment practices—differences that can result in discontinuity for children/families during the transition to school (Dunham et al., 2016). While research into the benefits of inter-organisational collaboration has a long history (Graham & Barter, 1999; Wimpfheimer et al., 1991), research into the ‘types of learning’ facilitated via inter-organisational collaboration is relatively new (Le Pennec & Raufflet, 2018, p. 817). Our study adds to this emerging research by exploring how cross-sector collaboration may advance teacher-driven professional learning about positive transitions to school.

In 2017, across the state of Victoria, 5063 teachers from ECEC settings and the foundation year of primary school participated in one of 279 face-to-face professional learning workshops (PLWs), with the aim of developing cross-sector understandings and improved transition-to-school practices (Rouse et al., 2023). The PLWs, developed by the authors in partnership with the Victorian State Government’s Department of Education and Training (DET), were found to afford participants opportunities to build cross-sector relationships and to better understand each other’s roles and practices (Garner et al., 2021). These structured workshops, however, were resource intensive and whilst offered across the state to allow easy access for local participants, they were restricted to one day. As such a decision was made to create a Facebook group to enable workshop participants to continue engaging in collaborative dialogue online, unrestricted by time or geographical location—a move that addresses the issue that standalone workshops do not typically provide the level of intensity or individualised support that is necessary for advancing teachers’ learning or sustaining changes in practice (Crawford et al., 2021).

This paper reports on the professional learning and cross-sector collaboration that was enabled by teacher-driven engagement with the ‘Transition to School’ Facebook page from 2017 to 2019. The study explores the professional learnings that can be achieved in a teacher-driven online environment that follows a face-to-face workshop—an investigation that is particularly pertinent in the field of education given the increased use of social media for professional learning and development (Lightle, 2010; Rensfeldt et al., 2018). In particular, this study used Activity Theory to investigate teacher participants’ lived experiences, evidenced via their online engagement, to explore how participants chose to use the Facebook site, framed by the following research question:

To what degree can a ‘transition to school’ Facebook group for ECEC and primary school teachers support members’ cross-sector collaborations and professional learning?

Activity Theory is based upon the understanding that knowledge/learning is mediated via social tools, instruments and interactions, rather than being isolated within the mind of the individual (Sannino & Engeström, 2018). As Facebook can be described as a social tool, this method was well suited to exploring the ‘types of learning’ (Le Pennec & Raufflet, 2018) that occurred within the informal Facebook environment that formed the basis of our case study.

Early years teachers, teaching and education

Context

Across Australia, and particularly in the state of Victoria, there is a systemic disconnect between ECEC (which includes preschool education) and schooling contexts. In Victoria, wide differences exist in governance, site location, service type, qualifications and operational constraints. For example, while a significant percentage of eligible children (aged four-five years) attend preschool in the year prior to commencing school, preschool is not compulsory. In contrast, school enrolment is compulsory from the year of a child’s sixth birthday. Preschool education is delivered across a range of organisational ECEC contexts, including not-for-profit and for-profit longday childcare settings, and community managed standalone preschool settings (called sessional kindergartens). In contrast, school is either public and state government run, auspiced by various faith-based organisations (e.g. the Catholic Dioceses) or Independent and privately run. Furthermore, most ECEC programs are located on separate sites to schools, have different organisational structures, and different qualifications and employment conditions for staff.

Schools and ECEC programs also have different pedagogical approaches. The school sector follows a national curriculum that outlines specific learning and content requirements (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. n.d.). School teachers will usually adopt more structured classroom-based pedagogical approaches centred around the discipline-specific learning areas outlined in the national curriculum. In contrast, the ECEC sector is guided by a national Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009) and national quality standards (Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority, 2018), with educators generally adopting more play-based pedagogical approaches, which are child-centred and draw on children’s interests. As such, ECEC teachers and school teachers operate in two separate and distinct organisational systems, with a clear need for opportunities to share their diverse perspectives, and to foster shared understandings, for the benefit of the children/families transitioning between sectors (Moss, 2012b; Noel, 2011; Petriwskyj et al., 2005).

Over the past decade, a government-recognised priority to lower ‘cross-sectoral boundaries’ (Productivity Commission, 2011, p. 5) has acknowledged the need to address the disconnect that exists between these separate but bounded education systems. Complementing the national EYLF, the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (0–8) was introduced to build continuity of learning and practice across the two sectors (DET, 2017), mapped against the Victorian school curriculum, for educators working with children in ECEC settings and the first three years of schooling. In addition, the Transition: a positive start to school Resource Kit (DET, 2017) was developed to enable shared understandings and transition-to-school practices, including the newly redeveloped Transition Learning and Development Statement (TLDS) that preschool teachers write for school teachers each year. Preschool teachers use the statement to outline each child’s learning strengths and areas of need, and effective strategies school teachers may choose to adopt to support continuity of learning during each child’s transition to formal schooling. The DET moved the TLDS to an online format in 2017, in order to make it ‘easier for early childhood teachers to complete and share’ the statements with schools (DET, 2021, para. 4). This study began in the year that the TLDS transitioned to an online format—a change that featured in the PLWs of 2017.

Social media and professional learning

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have become a part of people’s daily lives, providing opportunities to create online profiles ‘according to user preferences’, with easy access to contact lists and posts shared by ‘others in the system’ (Yildirim, 2019, p. 592). In addition to personal usage, such sites also ‘provide environments to profile… one’s professional life, to express ideas, to share resources and to connect with colleagues unconstrained by time or place’ (Prestridge, 2019, p.143), to challenge hierarchies, share information during critical events, or to seek or render help when needed (Carpenter, 2016; Kapoor et al., 2018; Yildirim, 2019). This includes opportunities for collaboration, generally defined as the action of working with others ‘to achieve a shared goal’, which can result in professional learning and development for all involved (Le Pennec & Raufflet, 2018, p. 817).

It is now common for teachers to be members of several different social network sites, and to be members of different groups within the one site—a significant contributor to job satisfaction, professional development and teacher retention (Kelly & Antonio, 2016). Many educators have recognised the opportunities that social media provide for professional learning, including the shift from being consumers of content, to producers of content that is shared ‘through collaboration and independent inquiry’ (Prestridge, 2019, p.144), becoming active constructors of information according to their own requirements (Yildirim, 2019). For greatest effect, Staudt et al. (2013) argue that an online professional learning environment must enable teachers’ active participation, creation and/or sharing of artefacts and discourse by providing a safe space to try out new ideas, reflect and receive feedback. Facebook appears to be an ideal platform for facilitating such exchanges, given that Waldman (2016) found that the Facebook interface is designed to emulate a social environment; enabling a reciprocity in responses which in turn leverages an element of trust between users ‘nudging’ members to share (p. 193).

In addition to long-term professional learning, Greenhalgh and Koelher (2017, p. 274) argue that there is also warrant for professional learning that can respond to teachers’ individualised, immediate requirements, which they have termed ‘just in time’ professional learning. Whilst the authors were examining the use of Twitter to fulfil such a need, we have explored how a Facebook group may likewise meet teachers’ immediate professional learning needs. We therefore add to this emerging research in recognition that social media sites are not all alike, with differences between their personal and professional usage generally based on how people wish to use them (Yildirim, 2019). Critically, however, our study further advances research into professionals’ use of social media by exploring how suited a user-driven social media site would be to inter-organisational collaboration, trust building and professional learning.

Research design

Theoretical framework: Activity Theory

Activity Theory is based upon the understanding that knowledge/learning is mediated via social tools, instruments and interactions, rather than being isolated within the mind of the individual, and as such focusses analysis on ‘mediated cooperative actions’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 44). This premise makes Activity Theory ideally suited to an analysis of teachers’ social media usage ‘for personal and professional development’ (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2018, p. 4). Activity Theory also recognises that ‘activity systems are increasingly interconnected and interdependent’, allowing for the analysis of ‘two or more activity systems that have a partially shared object’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 46), as per the inter-organisational collaboration under investigation that shares a clearly identifiable object of activity: the transition-to-school process. The premise upon which Activity Theory is based has long-standing support, given that any ‘matter-at-hand’ (in this instance: engaging with the Transition to School Facebook group), has long been identified as being composed of (1) an ‘End’ or purpose, (2) means, (3) action and its (4) real-life contextualised applicability (Hegel, 1807/1977, p. 247).

The ‘end/purpose’, or ‘object of activity… is an invitation to interpretation, personal sense making and societal transformation’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 45). The object is what ‘drives the activity’ and what ‘gives it meaning and significance’ (Ploettner & Tresserras, 2016, p. 88), ‘focusing attention and providing motivation’ (Blayone, 2019). It is important to note, however, that this end/purpose operates across two interconnected planes of motivation—the generalised object of activity ‘connected to societal meaning’ that the collective share, and the individualised, personal object of activity (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 45). It is critical to distinguish between these two planes given that activity theory recognises that ‘individual actions and collective activity are not the same thing’ (Ploettner & Tresserras, 2016, p. 89).

The object of activity can be difficult to identify and articulate at a particular point in time, given that it is ‘constantly under construction’ and will differ for each individual depending on their position within the division of labour and their own personal history (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 46). For this reason, in addition to the object of activity, Activity Theory recognises that systems must be studied historically. As such, this study sought to track and map ‘the process of development’ of participants’ use of the Facebook group ‘in all its phases and changes—from the moment of its appearance to its death’, recognising that it is by such means that it would ‘reveal its nature’ (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 43), revealing the ebb and flow of objects of activity over time.

Ethics

Ethical approval to conduct the study was granted by Deakin University’s Human Ethics Advisory Group (HEAG) (approval number HAE-17-060). Invitations to join the closed Facebook page was given to participants of the 2017 Transition to School PLWs. On applying to join the Facebook group, members were provided a plain language statement clarifying that data from postings would be used for this research, and by joining the group they were providing consent to participate. It was also made clear that any data extracted for research purposes would be de-identified.

Limitations

The authors only had access to the data posted on the Facebook page. As such it is difficult to know whether group members connected with each other privately via the Facebook site or used other social media platforms to seek out and become part of inter-organisational professional learning communities. The methodology for the study also prevented the authors from undertaking any follow up interviews with participants, which may have provided further insights about participants’ engagement with the site and the effect/s of this sharing of information via social media.

Situating the current study

The activity of Activity Theory has been defined as a ‘system in which the division of labor separates different goal-oriented actions and combines them to serve a collective object’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 45) or purpose/end (Hegel, 1807/1977). This is achieved via ‘means of cultural artefacts such as signs and tools’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 44), driven by real-life contextualised applicability. The collective object or generalised purpose of the Facebook group was to create a user-driven space where members could continue the professional learning and discussions that began during the PWLs—interactions that would lead to effective transition-to-school processes for young children. We analysed the site’s data to identify the specific goal-orientated actions of the Facebook group’s participants to investigate whether the site was used for such a purpose/end, divided by the following divisions of labour: (1) participants who created posts; (2) participants who replied to posts; and (3) participants who ‘reacted’ to posts (like/love/wow emojis, etc.), while also identifying the object/purpose of membership by coding individual posts/replies. Actions were also tracked over time from inception (June-2017) until December-2019 inclusive—the latter date of which was chosen as an ‘end point’ to facilitate the writing of this paper. While the Facebook group remained open, use has been minimal in the intervening years, with only 6 posts registered in 2020, none in 2021 and two in 2022. Only one of the 2020–2022 posts received replies—a post written by an ECEC educator in June 2020, asking for guidance on how to ‘view and assess children’ during pandemic-imposed remote learning to gauge whether a child should undertake a second year of kindergarten versus transitioning to school. The post received five replies.

Participants

At the time of writing, the Facebook group had 598 members, having maintained between 580 and 605 members from its inception. Of the 598 members, 274 (45.82%) were active participants, having published at least one post or an emoji reaction between 1 June 2017 and 31 December 2019. Divided by participant group, 228 (83.21%) of the 274 active participants were ECEC professionals (engaging 1–30 times; average = 5), 30 (10.95%) were school professionals (engaging 1–22 times; average = 3), 10 (3.65%) were PLW facilitators (engaging 1–14 times; average = 5), three (1.09%) were site administrators (engaging 14–88 times; average = 51) and three (1.09%) were DET professionals (engaging 1–13 times; average = 7). One outlier was evident among the school group—a teaching principal who engaged 22 times. Of the remaining 29 school participants, engagement ranged from 1 to 5 times with an average of two.

Data collection and analysis

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to identify patterns in the data (Smith et al., 2009); an approach to data analysis that aims to ‘explore’, ‘interpret’ and ‘understand’ individuals’ ‘lived… personal experiences’ within social contexts( Smith & Fieldsend, 2021, p. 147). This approach is used to understand each individual’s lived experiences within an overarching schema that identifies patterns and relationships across the participant group—in this case, teachers’ lived experiences of the transition-to-school process and their own professional learning as a result of inter-organisational collaboration within a dedicated social media platform. This study deviates from traditional use of IPA in seeking to work with a larger dataset. IPA is typically conducted with up to 10 homogeneous participants, via semi-structured interviews (Smith & Fieldsend, 2021). This study sought to analyse a larger dataset by capturing participants’ experiential data via their personalised Facebook posts.

Following the process outlined in Smith and Fieldsend (2021), each author coded every post and reply line-by-line in order to capture participants’ personal lived experiences and grouped these together into ‘experiential clusters’ (p. 158). Each post was a singular publication that ranged in length from 1 to 239 words and/or emoji icons. As such it was found that some posts could be coded using more than one cluster category. The following is a coding example from one post: (1) [experiential cluster: introduction] ‘Hi everyone! I am a Foundation teacher at a school in [name of suburb]!’ and (2) [experiential cluster: intentions/desire] ‘Looking forward to the conversations to be had on this site!’ The authors shared codes and annotations with each other, during which time final cluster categories were identified and agreed upon. Seven experiential clusters were identified using this process (Table 1).

Table 1 Participants’ Posts categorised by experiential cluster
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The divisions of labour data (i.e. ‘actions’—see Sect. ‘Situating the current study’) was used to identify the division of labour within the Facebook community, while the ‘experiential clusters’ data were used to identify the generalised and personal ‘objects of activity’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 45), that is, participants’ purposes for using the Facebook site as per the content of their activity: (1) actions, divided into the following themes/division of labour: (a) participants who created an initial post; (b) participants who replied to posts; and (c) participants who ‘reacted’ to posts (using a like/love/wow/angry emoji); and (2) real-life applicability clusters (the experience that is captured in each post)—(a) introduction/welcome; (b) current workplace experiences; (c) intentions/desires; (d) resources; (e) reporting; (f) call to action; and (g) generic comments (Table 1). The data were also divided by month and year to follow the process of development of activity over time (Vygotsky, 1997).

Findings

The findings are presented in the following order: Sect. ‘Division of Labour’: Division of labour (participant actions), followed by Sect. ‘Participants’ posts categorised by experiential cluster’: Experiential clusters (i.e. the categorised clusters that describe participants’ actions).

Division of labour

The findings presented in Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, show the documented divisions of labour of the ECEC and school professionals who engaged with the Transition to School Facebook page, including DET staff, the Facebook site’s administrative staff and Transition to School PLW facilitators. Figure 1 shows the total number of actions (n = 1 467) recorded via the Facebook site, divided by (1) initial posts, (2) replies and (3) reactions, spanning 1 June 2017 to 31 December 2019 inclusive. Figure 1 shows that the majority of posts, replies and reactions [collectively referred to as ‘actions’] (n = 1 249; 85.14%) occurred in the Facebook group’s first year, in the year of the Transition to School PLWs. The Facebook site was used each month from June to November in its initial year of use. The second year had the second most actions (n = 158), but usage was more sporadic. Documented activity (i.e. user actions) was found to occur in only four months of that year: May, July, September and October. The third year presented with the least number of actions (n = 60) over a more extended period of time than in the second year. In the third year, documented activity was detected across six months from March to November, activity pausing in May, July and August within that timeframe.

Fig. 1
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Division of labour: totals

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Fig. 2
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Initial posts by participant group

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Fig. 3
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Replies by participant group

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Fig. 4
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Reactions by participant group

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Figure 2 shows all the initial posts that were recorded from June-2017 to December-2019 (n = 137). Results show that ECEC professionals created initial posts in all three years of documentation. In 2017, ECEC professionals made 81 initial posts, they contributed nine initial posts in 2018, and 11 in 2019. By contrast, school professionals contributed 17 initial posts in 2017 but none in subsequent years. The Facebook site administrators made 13 initial posts in 2017 but none in subsequent years. The Transition to School PLW facilitators made three initial posts in 2017 but none in subsequent years and DET staff made three initial posts in 2017 but none in subsequent years. All initial posts from 2018 to 2019 were posted by ECEC professionals (n = 20).

Most initial posts (85.40%) occurred in 2017 (n = 117), the majority of which occurred in the first month (n = 54). There was a resurgence of initial posts in October–November of 2017 (n = 34), a slight resurgence in July of 2018 (n = 3) and September–October of 2018 (n = 5), then again in September–November of 2019 (n = 8).

Of the 137 initial posts logged from 2017 to 2019, only four failed to receive an acknowledgement of some kind, whether it was a reply (Fig. 3) or an emoji reaction (Fig. 4)—each was authored by an ECEC professional. The first was logged in September-2018 by an ECEC professional asking for technical support using the electronic TLDS reporting document. Likewise, two posted in October-2019 asked for technical support using the electronic TLDS. The fourth was a link to a professional learning workshop, posted in September-2019.

Figure 3 shows the number of replies to posts from June-2017 until December-2019 inclusive (n = 577). As with the initial posts, ECEC professionals were the only participants who posted replies in all three years. In 2017, ECEC professionals posted 368 replies, they posted 83 replies in 2018 and nine in 2019. By contrast, CSE professionals contributed 19 replies in 2017 and one in 2018. The Facebook site administrators posted 74 replies in 2017 but none in subsequent years. The Transition to School PLW facilitators posted nine replies in 2017 but none in subsequent years and DET staff posted two replies in 2017, 12 in 2018 and none in the final year. All of the replies recorded in 2019 (October–November) were posted by ECEC professionals (n = 9). Most replies (81.80%) occurred in 2017 (n = 472), the majority of which occurred in October–November (n = 368), and 62 recorded in June. A resurgence of replies occurred in July-2018 (n = 53) and September–October-2018 (n = 37).

Figure 4 shows the number of reactions to posts (n = 753) from June-2017 until December-2019 inclusive—the majority of which (96.28%) were the ‘Like’ emoji icon (n = 725). Three participants selected the ‘Wow’ icon (all ECEC professionals). Nine participants selected the ‘Love’ icon (all ECEC professionals).

Eight participants selected the ‘Sad’ icon (seven ECEC professionals and one school professional). Two ‘Laugh’ icons were selected by ECEC professionals in October-2017 and November-2017, respectively. One was in response to an ECEC teacher posting the following about the electronic TLDS: ‘Hey guys… just a heads up no spell check! So if you have chubby little fingers like me make sure you proof read’ and the other was in response to an ECEC teacher stating that she still had a handful of statements yet to complete. Six participants selected the ‘Angry’ icon (all ECEC professionals; five in response to an initial ECEC October-2017 post (and subsequent replies) describing an experience that ended with: ‘…yes I’m frustrated …as I spend my Saturday (unpaid) writing up my transition to school statements’).

Deviating from Figs. 2, 3 and 4 shows that three participant groups engaged with the Facebook site when reacting to posts, across all three years of documentation: ECEC, school and DET professionals. In 2017, ECEC professionals reacted to 506 posts, they reacted to 50 posts in 2018 and 35 posts in 2019. School professionals reacted to 45 posts in 2017, one in 2018 and two in 2019. Site administrators reacted to 64 posts in 2017 and two in the final year. The Transition to School PLW facilitators reacted to 42 posts in 2017 but none in subsequent years and DET staff reacted to three posts in 2017, two in 2018 and one in 2019. Most reactions (87.65%) occurred in 2017 (n = 660), the majority of which occurred in the first month (n = 200) and again in October–November of the first year (n = 321). May, July, September and October of 2018 received comparable reactions, ranging from 10 to 19 reactions in each month, with a resurgence occurring again in October–November of 2019 (n = 31).

Participants’ posts categorised by experiential cluster

All initial posts and replies from June-2017 through to December-2019 were analysed and categorised into the following experiential clusters: (1) introduction/welcome; (2) current transition-to-school experiences; (3) intentions/desires; (4) resources; (5) reporting; (6) call to action; and (7) generic comments. Figure 5 shows the distribution of experiential clusters in the first year. As would be expected, the predominant ‘experience’ in the first month were introductions and welcome posts. In October–November-2017, posts mainly focussed on resources (mostly resources that would aid in completing the TLDS reports) and report-specific posts (mostly related to how to fill in the TLDS), with generic replies that offered words of thanks, encouragement or sympathy, etc. For example, many posts sought technical assistance:

ECEC-P1: ‘Does anyone know why this statement is grey not black?? [image accompanies post] Anyone else having the same issue?’

ECEC-P2—‘Yeah, mine did the same. I just highlighted and changed font colour to black. Really annoying!’

ECEC-P1—‘Easy!!! Thanks heaps’

Fig. 5
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Year one: experiential clusters

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Others sought advice:

ECEC-P3—‘Just wanted to know if people have emailed the whole statement to families to fill out their section or printed hard copies to give to parents? What is the best option?’

ECEP-P4—‘I gave them hard copies’

While others posted their frustrations or reassured participants from the other sector:

ECEC-P2—‘I always wonder how much the schools actually read them and take on what we have written? It really feels like a waste of time and effort a lot of the time’

School-P1—‘As a Prep teacher I read every transition statement that is send to our school and I appreciate the time and effort that early childhood teachers put into these statements’.

In the second year, only four clusters were identified. Most related to resources and the TLDSs that ECEC teachers wrote for children transitioning into their first year of formal schooling (Fig. 6), as did the few comments posted in 2019 (Fig. 7). The fact that school participants made initial posts in 2017 alone, and offered few replies and reactions in 2018–2019, may have been in response to the content discussed on the site, which was mostly related to access, support, writing and sharing of the ECEC sector’s TLDS reports.

Fig. 6
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Year two: experiential clusters

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Fig. 7
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Year three: experiential clusters

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Discussion

This study sought to explore how teachers chose to use a Facebook page, specifically established to foster user-driven cross-sector collaboration and professional learning about positive transition-to-school processes. As an environment for fostering professional learning, the findings showed that the Facebook site presented mixed results. Whilst 274 (45.82%) users actively engaged with the Facebook group over the three years, many members discontinued their involvement after year one. In the first year, most of the postings centred around the TLDS, with the site mainly used as a mechanism for teachers to express their feelings of frustration or to share their difficulties in writing and uploading the TLDS. Unlike Kelly and Antonio’s (2016) study, members of this Facebook group did use the site as an opportunity to ask questions and seek advice. However, from an inter-organisational collaboration perspective, the majority of postings and responses came from participants in the ECEC sector, mostly posted in the months when teachers were writing the TLDS.

As a professional learning platform, it could be argued that the ‘just in time’ (Greenhalgh & Koelher, 2017, p. 274) technical advice, encouragement and support teachers received while writing the TLDSs provided ‘value’ (Le Pennec & Raufflet, 2018, p. 817) beyond professional learning. An atmosphere of shared endeavour was created, a ‘collective share’ (Sannino & Engeström, 2018, p. 45), where teachers could feel heard and acknowledged. This was particularly so for members who felt they were on their own and wanted to reach out, feel connected and receive assistance when using a new reporting system. However, our findings also showed that the needs of the majority shaped the 'object of activity' to such a degree that the Facebook site became more of an intra-organisational ‘just in time’ tool reserved for urgent technical requests that required a quick reply/resolution, rather than a platform for building and strengthening inter-organisational collaboration, relationships and understanding. This highlights a need for further research to explore the ways and means by which social media may best facilitate cross-sector collaboration between the education sectors and the factors that will most effectively enable, invite and/or encourage inter-organisational interactions.

Further to the above, findings showed that whilst the initial intent for the Facebook group was to provide a space for cross-sector professional collaboration, it was the ‘collective’, via their actions within the site, that determined how the space would be used—that is, that the space be primarily used by ECEC teachers for technical support and advice. While the Facebook page provided teachers the opportunity to build a cross-sector collaborative community, school members were largely silent or unacknowledged, and postings, especially in 2018–2019, appeared to mainly address ECEC teachers’ intra-organisational, ‘just in time’ objects of activity. Whilst some school teachers were initially active, offering ECEC teachers encouragement, support and validation, their postings were rarely commented on or acknowledged by ECEC members, and at times, were actively dismissed. As such, postings of support from school members did not continue beyond the first year. There were therefore many missed opportunities, especially in the first year, for inter-organisational collaboration when ECEC teachers omitted to seek support or advice from their school colleagues, or to build an environment of collegial trust and reciprocity (Waldman, 2016) across the two organisations. What did occur, however, was that those who continued to engage with the site became active constructors of information—of just in time support and advice—according to their own requirements (Yildirim, 2019).

The Facebook page, with its cross-sector membership, provided an avenue for ECEC teachers to exchange ideas with their school colleagues about the information that could be helpful to school teachers when receiving the TLDS. Despite this affordance, the Facebook page was not used in this way. When three school participants wrote that he/she and colleagues always read the TLDS (in a November-2017 thread), the offerings were disputed by ECEC members, and failed to be built upon to strengthen and foster cross-sector relationships. In fact, given that school-member initial posts only occurred in year one, in year two there was only one reply, and none occurred in year three, we suggest that the way in which the ECEC sector responded to school teachers’ supportive replies influenced the school sector to take a less active role following the November-2017 thread. Over the course of the thread of replies to the November-2017 post only two ECEC participants detailed instances where they too felt supported by their school colleagues, while eight responded by detailing their own experiences of not feeling validated by the school sector, with one ECEC participant writing, ‘You are in a minority’ in response to a school teacher’s supportive reply. These responses failed to create an environment of trust (Waldman, 2016), forestalling the site’s ability to enable ongoing inter-organisational collaboration, communication and learning.

Yildirim (2019) suggests that social networking environments create a platform for teachers to become active participants who self-generate information according to their own requirements. This notion is significant when drawing inferences from the findings in this current study. The postings and comments from school members dissipated over the three years of data collection, and ECEC members mainly only sought to connect with their ECEC colleagues during the months when they were writing the TLDS. As a professional learning tool, the Facebook group provided a user-driven learning environment, constructed by participants to meet their personal needs. Those seeking a different connection moved away from this particular avenue, such as two school participants who discussed establishing face-to-face inter-organisational networks in their local communities in the Facebook site’s first year. These findings appear to suggest that the professional learning that did occur was limited to the intra-organisational, just in time needs of the few (Greenhalgh & Koelher, 2017; Kapoor et al., 2018), those who were most active in their use of the Facebook site over the three years. As a result, as the need for support in completing the new TLDS dissipated, so too did participant engagement with the site.

Conclusion

The collective object or generalised purpose of the Transition to School Facebook group was to create a teacher-driven environment where ECEC and school professionals could collaborate, to continue their discussions and professional learning about effective transition-to-school processes for young children. In practice, the collective object quickly shifted to the pragmatic components of completing the electronic TLDS reports, and the mechanics of using the tool. The site offered a space for ECEC professionals to seek solutions and ‘just in time' responses to their needs at a time convenient to them. Although the reactions from school teachers indicated a clear interest in transition-to-school-related posts, they were mostly onlookers in this particular ‘division of labour’ and marginalised from direct participation in discussions related to the completion of TLDSs or other transition-related posts.

Whilst the social media site’s creation may have aimed to facilitate teacher-driven inter-organisational professional learning and shared understandings, the site was ultimately used to facilitate professional learning for one sector alone. That is, the Facebook platform provided an avenue for ECEC teachers to collaborate with their colleagues to enable skill development and technical competence. We therefore conclude that whilst the social media group experiment was not useful in facilitating inter-organisational collaboration, it did provide an opportunity to nurture and encourage the purpose and aims of a subgroup of the ‘collective’ (Ploettner & Tresserras, 2016, p. 89) to develop confidence and competence in a mandated professional task. Concurrently, the lack of inter-organisational interactions evidenced in the Facebook group under study highlights a need for future research into the factors that will support collaborative cross-sector professional learning via a social media site that is shaped by the needs of the broader collective, rather than simply meeting the agenda of an external body or that of a subgroup within the whole. Future research, for example, could explore whether introducing a Facebook group during a face-to-face workshop in a blended-learning capacity would better support inter-organisational collaboration, so that facilitators may work together with teachers to negotiate the specific goals and purpose/s of the site within the broader context and purpose of the face-to-face workshops (Philipsen et al., 2019).

The findings from this study add to the increasing body of literature that explore how social media may be used as a professional learning tool that allow participants to gain information and ‘just in time’ support, reinforcing the findings of previous studies (Kapoor et al., 2018; Greenhalgh & Koelher, 2017; Yildirim, 2019). Adding to this research, however, the study also found that the ‘just in time’ needs of the more active members can dictate how the site is used and may discourage others from active participation, highlighting how the focus of social media sites, no matter what their original intent, will be shaped by the more active members of the group. To further explore how inter-organisational collaborative learning can best be encouraged for teachers in user-driven online environments, we recommend that future research investigate the factors that facilitate and impede collaborative practices, including the impact of negotiating purpose and goals using a blended-learning approach, and inviting participant voice to better understand user motivation.