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Far more interesting for me are percentages.

For example, according to a recent report by the Financial Times, 22% of social network users are
children. That means that 78% are adults. I found that figure surprising, given
the emphasis in the media and in educational circles about children’s use of
social networking.

How important is social networking in your life?

Just over half (52%) said it wasn’t important.

Other comments

• its is essential to me to keep in touch with my family and my friends who
  live in different conutries and to meet other people.
  
• Because it allows me to talk to people arrange outtings, and find out times
  dates and places. Plus i can keep in contact with some people i dont see as
  often or have moved away from.
  
• Social networking is important to me because it is an easy way to comunicate
  with my friends outside of school where other people can't allways interfeer
  with my conversations. also it is an easy way to keep in touch and talk to
  people for free!!
  
• I use MSN to talk to friends that I have that I rarely see, because they
  live in other countries.
  
• well i dont think social networking is very essential its just a nice thing
  to have it is not very important
  
• i only go on the computer to talk to mates but i also do other things.
  
• i dont use any social networking and dont plan to as i see them as a waste
  of time so it is really not very important in my life.

Still, not everything was doom and gloom. I was recently commissioned to bid
for some money on behalf of a school and Local Authority, and was told last week
that mine was one of only 49 successful bids (and out of only 6 in London),
selected by a panel comprising a total of 16 people looking at close on 200 bids
all together. I'm really pleased because it means that we will now be able take
teachers out of school in order to generate resources for the Diplomas starting in September 2008. The biggest problem
facing teachers is lack of time, and this funding will, in effect, buy a fair
bit of that. Now the hard work begins!

The next couple of days are rather packed, but the one I'm looking forward to
the most is a visit to a school that wishes to be considered for the ICT Mark (I'm an ICT Mark assessor). This is a quality
assurance badge that is based on the Self-Review Framework. If a school is awarded this then it
means not that it is perfect, but that it's achieved a
particular benchmark standard in each of 8 areas. The good thing about it is
that even if a school is not quite there yet, the process itself is a means of
improvement.