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Using social media platforms to build informal learning processes and social networks is significant in academic development practices within higher education. We present three vignettes illustrating academic practices occurring on Twitter to show that using social media is beneficial for building networks of academics, locally and globally, enhancing information flows, inspiring thinking, and motivating academic practice. Using a reflective and diffractive methodology, we illuminate how different flows of forces and relations are enacted. We argue it is in this fluidity of informal learning that perspectives are contested and shaped, and that academic developers can benefit by encompassing such practices.

Many higher education institutions around the world are increasingly motivated to incorporate social media for pedagogical benefit. At the same time, many institutions are also attracting an ever-growing number of students from overseas countries. With this in mind, researching how the use of social media applications impact on international students’ experiences of new cultural and pedagogical contexts in the host country is relevant. This article is a systematic review of current literature on international students in higher education and their use of social media, focusing on both the personal and educational aspects of use. This analysis reveals three central themes related to the role of social web technologies for international students, that is creating bridges, boundaries, or hybrid spaces.