Reti professionali di insegnanti su Facebook: studio di un caso

This paper presents the results of two exploratory studies on the use of SNSs in the context of some professional communities of teachers. A preliminary study, based on a questionnaire addressed to ten founders and administrators of online groups, has investigated the motivations, goals and levels of participation. A second study, focused on the members of five groups in Facebook, has involved the administration of a questionnaire aimed at exploring some research hypotheses concerning the relationships between types of groups and socio-relational dynamics, on one side, and types of groups and professional implications, on the other side. Results show that community's managers tend to found groups not only to share professional resources but also for ethical or participatory reasons. Data also allow finding the existence of differences between different types of groups, as well as the continuous hybridization between real and virtual worlds, thus generating the conditions to give rise to new professional initiatives.