The rise of the networker

What is that can make one years group of students so different from another, you have no doubt asked yourself this question and so do I, and this year is no exception. If you have been following this blog, then you will have picked up on the Social Networking exercise I devised for my 06/07 group as an icebreaker, that would eventually serve as a means of comparing final outcome. Well I ran the same exercise this year 07/08 and have finally got around to looking at the figures for September; this is the month on which outcomes will be compared. To my amazement the number of Forum postings has increased nine fold on the previous year! That’s right 900%. I have no explanation for such an unprecedented increase, the opportunity was presented to them in exactly the same way, no mention made on likely impact for outcome. Can it simply be an early indicator of the growing perception and influence that Social Networking is having on our expectations for life style, as we come to increasingly live in an online world? Comments welcome.