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Microblogs have been used in the educational context. However, differently from following friends' status messages, in the educational scenario it is important to follow the discussions, to understand the flow of messages. YouFlow microblog was developed for that purpose. It is a microblog that provides the main structures of discourse that are available on communication systems as well as messages' categorization according to a lesson plan. An exploratory case study allowed analyzing the use of the structures of discourse on the microblog in an educational context. Then, an explanatory case study showed an increase in the participation on discussions of topics according to a lesson plan.

Purpose – To present YouFlow Microblog and how its functionalities for discourse structuring and message classification allows improving learning. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors developed a survey on microblogs and its functionalities for supporting education, and then the authors developed a new microblog called YouFlow Microblog, which was used in a case study to illustrate its applicability. Findings – The results were: the categorization of messages according to the lesson plan allowed deeper discussions; the amount of messages and preference of the students for the categorization approach are directly related; the filtering of messages (categorization on the reading time) was used as a facilitator of the discussion understanding; the students prefer the search results organized by the categories and related messages; and the students were able to follow the discussions supported by the tree structure of discourse, categorization of messages according to the lesson plan and searches or filtering of messages. Research limitations/implications – Other case studies involving more students and from different knowledge areas could be performed. Other approaches for messages' visualization for reducing the amount of information could be explored, such as recommendation of messages in microblogs; and groupings of messages according to date, priority and subject. Practical implications – The developed microblog is useful and proved to be interesting for applying in the educational context. Originality/value – No other microblog allows different structuring of messages and the their classification according to the lesson plan, in addition to filtering and query functionalities.