Connecting, Collaborating, Continuing to Learn

Just about a decade into the 21st century and we are increasingly utilizing the web for more and more of our daily activities.  The ubiquitous nature of online tools is transforming the ways in which people communicate and connect.  The increasing popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter have paved the way for serious conversation about the use of these tools in the educational community.  The evidence is clear.  The National School Boards Association (2007) reports that nearly 96% of students with access to the internet have participated in the use of social network technologies.  What’s even more important to educators is that more than 50% of student talk online specifically about homework.  The same report suggests that in schools that utilize structured online professional communities for teacher collaboration and communication, participation is high. So what does this mean for educational researchers, administrators, teachers and the other participants in our public education system?  We need to take online networks seriously.

“To harness the power of this societal transformation to serve teaching and learning, we need to understand the phenomenon and unlock the value it holds.”

In their study, Analzying Online Teacher Networks, Schlater, Farooq, Fusco, Schank and Dwyer (2009) argue that there are limitations to existing research that don’t allow us to explore the potential power of these social networks.  There is a great deal of content that is generated in these environments.  We need to explore ways the incorporate integrated and automated methods to collect this data.  In additional we need to create more analytical frameworks that allow for a more insightful approach to data analysis.  Even traditional Social Network Analysis methods have difficulty gaining access to and managing both the amount and types of data collected.  Online social networks are often large in scale and boundaries are difficult to determine. The authors go on to claim,  “The cyber-environment offers the ability to capture and analyze more complete and objective records of peoples actions and interactions automatically over time, however digital actions are not simple to mine or interpret. In addition, interaction data are missing a key ingredient of SNA: judgments about the strength of social ties.”

Research supported propositions:

1.  Research indicates that professional networks among educators are increasing in use and may play an important role in improving education.

2. Participation in online networks may, in fact, support teachers practice and facilitate the development of new knowledge, however the activities and value are not well understood.

3. Major obstacles to full utilization of these teacher networks is the “lack of appropriate framworks, tools and techniques for studying them.”

Social Network Analysis: a mathematical approach to analyzing the interactions and relations of entities (in the case of educational networks, people) in a network and creating a visual representation , called a sociogram, mapping the structure and strength of relationships.  (Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988)

Using this analysis researchers are able to understand how information and resources flow between individuals in a network.  (Frank & Zhao, 2005; Frank, Zhao and Borman, 2004) (and others) Through this work we can begin to develop ways to understand how social ties within a educational organization are formed and how the social capital (resoruces obtained from the social ties) can support and promote school change.

“This body of work is breaking new ground in correlating the existence of social capital with outcomes that matter to practitioners and policy makers (e.g. higher student test scores, more helping behaviors, and successful implementation of reform practices.”