Survey Results Point to Educators' Interest in Social Networking Sites
  By Scott Aronowitz
10/14/09

Preliminary results of a survey released in mid-September at the EdNET Conference <http://www.ednetconference.com/>  in Chicago indicate a great deal of interest from educators in using online social networking to connect with colleagues and discuss best practices and ways to improve education. Sponsored jointly by edWeb.net <http://www.edweb.net/> , MCH <http://www.mailings.com/> , and MMS Education <http://www.mmseducation.com/> , the survey of more than 70,000 education professionals showed that 62 percent have joined a social networking Web site. Although 86 percent of those surveyed who said they have joined such online communities have, in fact, joined general-interest social network Facebook, a good deal of the response indicated that educators would be greatly interested in communities specifically dedicated to education. The survey also concluded that those who have already joined a social network are more optimistic about the technology and its long-term value to educators than those who have yet to do so. Earlier studies showed that students are substantially more involved in the technology than working teachers and administrators. This survey was commissioned in part in order to begin measuring the extent to which the education community is, in aggregate, adapting to Web 2.0 technologies such as social networks, blogging, wikis, video sharing and other tools that are growing in popularity as effective teaching, studying, research, and the increasingly collaborative marketplace of ideas. The final survey results will be available later this month. To request a copy of the preliminary results, send an e-mail to survey@edweb.net <http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/14/survey@edweb.net>, or call 800-575-6015, ext. 100.