Anyone interested in exploring the educational use of Ning?

I start my class Ning site this semester (at gaofei.ning.com), and am exploring how to use Ning to build a learning community in and outside the classroom.

Currently, the site is used for students to post their assignments and to share information such as news related to educational technology. I am also considering inviting students from previous class to participate in some of the discussions. But, I don't think this is enough, and I am still in the stage of exploration.

I am open to any creative ideas or suggestions regarding how we could make best use of such social networking site in our own teaching and how to conduct research on this.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks! :)

Fei

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matthew Smith on November 21, 2009 at 3:48pm: Hello Fei,
I am an electrical teacher at a Technical College here in Brisbane Australia and teach students between the ages of 16 and 50.
Could you please tell me if you have experienced any difficulty in encouraging your students to use social networking for education as I think this is going to be a challenge with some (most?) of my students.
Another teacher has tried something similar and found that she needed to make the information assessable before the students would begrudgingly participate.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I moght avoid this?
Regards
Matt; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Deedee on February 2, 2010 at 7:30am: Hi Fei,

I am working with a colleague who has been using Ning with his students to engage them pre, during and post-university. The site has been running now for 1 year and seems to have been a success.

Dee; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Fei Gao on February 4, 2010 at 10:39pm: That sounds very interesting, Dee. I am curious about how you and your colleague have been using it. Do you mind sharing the link of the site with me?

Fei; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Stefanie Panke on February 2, 2010 at 12:54pm: Hello!
I have written a short piece on the potential of social networking sites in education, maybe you will find it interesting:
http://etcjournal.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/social-networking-weavin...
Best,
Stefanie; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Fei Gao on February 4, 2010 at 10:37pm: Thank you for sharing this, Stefanie! i will definitely check it out.

Fei; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Trevor Watling on April 2, 2010 at 2:52am: To engage people with the technology you could intoduce "hooks" like in a fast moving novel. For example "First click here to open your page. On this page we will ask you to write something..... then comes the surprise!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Olajide on April 6, 2010 at 12:54pm: ...good one, I will also be interested in that....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Thomas Molnar on May 25, 2010 at 4:56am: A couple possibilities of interest...

Google Wave is now open to all. There is a lot to be said about it. Since it is rather new, pros and cons are encouraged to be weighed before proclaiming it's usefulness.
Some topics mention Google Wave offering too much and cluttering a user's social interaction.
Other topics mention using "Wave" in the classroom. A good site to start is...
http://www.theshinywave.com/collaboration/google-wave-in-the-classr...

Another very interesting new project is called Diaspora. It's one of the first social technologies, I've found, to offer both education support focus, control of personal information, and promising social networking tools.
This project is also brand new, so research is encouraged. But, this project mentions design elements which offer self hosted identity websites (you own, and control distribution/sharing of all content). It is open source, and is said to be usable as a widget/plug-in to integrate/moderate any social website. A good site to start is...
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/New-York-U-Students-Plan-New/23874/

All The Best,

Thomas; ▶ Reply to This