What happens when you introduce social network sites in schools?

I’m in the thick of data analysis for my dissertation right now. I’m doing something unique, and completing three separate studies that each explore a different question concerning the effect of Social Networking Sites (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, and just about everything on the web these days) on high school youth. The over-riding question is, how do activities in these online communities affect their social and academic outcomes??

Computer aided instruction is no worse, and sometimes better, than classroom instruction. CAI also offers other benefits – letting students go at their own pace, personalized feedback, and cost-effective delivery of education. So really, there is no reason why computer-aided instructional strategies are not part of a school’s repertoire for reforms.

One of my scholarly interests is in social networks, and naturally the application of social network analysis in education research. I’m currently working on a paper with my advisor looking at the citation patterns (and thus the flow of knowledge) between journals in Education. I’ll spare you the gritty details of sample selection, computing of various metrics, and the final analysis. You can wait for the article for that stuff. However, I thought I’d share a preliminary social-graph that offers some interesting insights into the knowledge flows of ed-research.
My secondary …