Two Year 11 students have come second in the Air NZ Sister Cities Competition for 2010.  They entered a submission based on a virtual conferencing assignment they did last year.

Nileesha Parbhu and Janoo Patel have received a trophy and two flight vouchers for within NZ for their efforts in the 'Best Youth, Education or School' category.

Early this year the students had to create a submission about their project, addressing criteria like how it linked communities together and what the objective of it was.  They were surpised at the strict rules.  'They pay attention to the smallest things - it had to be exactly ten pages and size 12 font, ' explained Janoo. 

The project they did last year was based on researching social networking and how it affects the lives on teenagers.  From an email, Ms Roughton took up the opportunity to do some virtual conferencing with a school in Australia as part of this process. 

Janoo and Nileesha worked with two students from Warrandyte High School in Victoria, who they video conferenced at school using Skype.  'It was an easier way to get hold of them and it felt like we actually met them.  It was a personal touch, ' says Nileesha about the experience.

They also surveyed adults and students in both cities using a Google Application to gather and collate the information.  Once they had this, they turned it into graphs and a report.

They made some interesting findings.  Nileesha was surprised at how adults were using social networking.  'Quite a few teachers social network, but also lots don't.'  Janoo adds, 'Some were very against it.'

Janoo noticed how much it really does impact on teenagers' lives.  'They spend a lot of time on sites.  They don't go out that much.'  In Australia students were using Bebo, whereas NZ students prefer Facebook.

Their conclusions were put on a the 2009 Together Online webzine last December, and on the Tech Link website as a NZ schools case study early this year, with the online Tearaway site also picking the story up.  Ms Roughton is pleasantly surpised at how much attention this project has received for how it's using technology in schools in a new way.

Social networking is becoming an increasingly controversial topic within schools, where they have traditionally been blocked but students have used proxy servers to get around this problem.  Some schools are starting to look into the option of unblocking sites and focussing more on educating students on how to use them safely.