ABSTRACT
The changes resulting from technological innovation through the Internet and social media are modifying the structure of interpersonal relationships and suggesting an even broader system in which the work of education and policy is taking place. We now are able to mine that wider system of interactions through advanced methods of extracting, storing, and representing massive amounts of user generated data. This chapter provides readers with a deeper understanding of the structure of the wider systems in which their efforts take place and how systems are interconnected. This work moves beyond discreet elements of the data, which at first glance may look chaotic, to identifying overall patterns from these interactions. The intersection of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and the wider system of social media, in this case with Twitter, allows the visualization of what was previously invisible – the network structure of climates of opinion and the key actors within that structure. In unpacking the idea that a broader communication system that impacts educational leaders in contemporary educational settings, we present an analysis of the climate of opinion on Twitter about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), one of the most ambitious educational reforms over the last 50 years in the US.
