Purpose: This paper explores the features of pracademic practice within online spaces where pracademics, academics and teachers interact.Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses autoethnographic case studies to showcase the boundary-spanning thinking of two pracademics, one a practicing teacher, the other an early career researcher, to provide an overview of how pracademics are engaging with research and the profession online in Australia, in 2021.Findings: The paper describes five key features that are central to the development of pracademic practice. They are rigour and depth, discussion beyond immediate cultural context, accessibility, knowledge creation and collaboration.Research limitations/implications: This paper is focused on the teacher and early career researcher perspectives on pracademia, due to the extant literature focusing on the well-established academic perspective primarily. It focuses on fora within the Twitter social media platform and the #edureading group specifically. The authors propose that the use of Twitter fora, as those outlined, provides a legitimate form of professional development, and does contribute to the development of pracademics.Originality/value: This piece itself is an output of pracademia; through the writing of this paper, the authors show that pracademia is possible through teacher and researcher collaboration. The focus on online spaces, pracademic teachers and a coverage of what's occurring provide a new agenda for further research and consideration.

: This paper shares insights from an international community of educators who have been using social media as a virtual space for a scholarly reading group: #edureading. The collection of educator narratives presented in this paper show how social networks on Twitter and Flipgrid were used as inclusive environments for teacher-led professional development. This paper is both a report of research involving five practitioners inquiring into their collective experience, and an exercise in building the scholarly capacity of the #edureading group. The accessibility of the social media platforms, as well as the collaborative, inquiry-based approach to scholarly reading, emerge as key themes in the educator narratives. The findings of this research emphasise that professional learning occurring in virtual spaces is open to social mediation using the norms of social networks, rather than the norms of workplaces, jurisdictions or education sectors, and that this can lead to a greater sense of empowerment for educators.

Democratic education remains a contentious and much strived for goal within teaching practice. What is most often lacking are the precise tools and techniques that might be combined to make this democratic goal a reality within schools. Considerations of democratic approaches to education within the literature are frequently theoretical, but practically quite limited. Moving from a highly theoretical space to a practical approach ready to be applied within a modern classroom, this paper will explore a confluence of teaching approaches that might make democratic education possible. The techniques, tools and platforms provided for consideration by teachers and lecturers here are grouped around three core themes: accessibility; relevance and efficiency to generate and allow a space that is democratic in nature. The tools for accessibility are: Instructional Video; Assistive technologies; and Generative Artificial Intelligence. Whilst for relevance: YouTube and TikTok are explored. In regards to efficiency: Flipped Learning, Retrieval practice and Method of Loci are discussed. And when honing in on the democratic nature of classroom spaces Socratic circles and a broadly Socratic approach are key. By combining these techniques this paper will propose a highly practical, modern method for producing a democratic classroom, with notes on how teachers might be able to carve out space and thinking to defend their choices and the logic behind combining these techniques to address modern students' needs and requirements.