Final results of the Survey of K-12 Educators on Social Networking and Content-Sharing Tools were released this week. The survey was sent to 83,000 educators nation-wide during late August and September.
The purpose of the study, which will be conducted on an annual basis, is to begin benchmarking educators' use and attitudes about Web 2.0 collaborative technologies such as social networking, blogging, wikis, video-sharing, and more.
61% of the educators surveyed have joined one or more social networking websites. While Facebook is currently the number one site joined, 76% of those who've joined seldom or never use it. There are a number of social networks that are dedicated specifically to education. Although these sites currently have low penetration, educators expressed a strong preference to join a social network dedicated to education.
A key finding is that educators who have already joined a social network are more positive about the technology and its value in education than educators who have not joined a social network.
Educators who responded provided insight on the factors that are inhibiting the growth of this technology in educational settings including major privacy concerns, schools/districts that block access to these website, and time pressure.
To download the full report visit http://www.edweb.net/fimages/op/K12Survey.pdf
