Social networking can have educational benefits, survey finds

At least half the adolescents who exchange messages for hours with their friends online or by cellphone spend part of the time discussing their schoolwork, a new study shows. The survey, commissioned by the Alexandria, Va.-based National School Boards Association, showed that 96 percent of adolescents with access to cellphones and Internet-capable computers use them to build and maintain social networks. NSBA leaders believe those numbers must point the way for educators. Social-networking technologies are so popular and offer such promise for education that district and school officials would be remiss not to adapt them for the classroom, they said. Read more of this article from Education Week.