While social networking is expanding in popularity, little is known about how educators are using these Web 2.0 collaborative technologies, and whether or not they see a value in them for education. MMS Education has collaborated with edWeb.net and MCH to conduct a new benchmarking study of educators’ use of and attitudes about social networking and content-sharing websites.

The study, Survey of K-12 Educators on Social Networking and Content-Sharing Tools, was administered to over 80,000 principals, school librarians and teachers; 1,284 responded. Understanding how educators use and value these technologies can have an impact on policy decisions and spur professional development programs to close the gap between students’ and educators’ use of technology. The preliminary results were released at the EdNET Conference in Chicago in September 2009, and MMS and its co-sponsors conducted a roundtable discussion of the issues with conference attendees. 

Click here to access the final report.