Ning

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ma lee on August 13, 2009 at 1:54am

I too would like to know more about how to incorporate ning into the course curricula

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marci Stern on October 12, 2009 at 9:45am

I have been using blogs on various sites with my HS English classes for several years and, although students participated because it was required, I never felt that it took off. I teach online with two colleges and know the importance of technological literacy to the futures of my students and really wanted to find a better way to incorporate language, writing and technology. Recently, I read about the classroom use of NIng is NEA Today magazine, and I was intrigued. In a matter of a short while I had created a Ning social network for my students and started lobbying my district's tech wizards to unblock the site from the district server and allow my students in district access. I am the only teacher in a district of almost 1000 educators to ask for a site like this and use it with students so it took them a while to make a decision. (While I was awaiting this roadblock lift, my students were already signing on from home, responding to my discussion prompts and creating content of their own! So I knew I had something potentially great here.)

So now we are unblocked and all of my 10th, 11th and 12th graders are logging on. It is a required part of the course, but is growing into a vital, engaging extension of my classroom. Yes, the kids are discussing literature with each other, which was my main focus at the beginning, but they are also discussing President Obama's policies, his Nobel Peace prize win, cell phone use, the effects of super corporations like Wal Mart on the world economy, and sharing pictures of their pets. I'm very excited, as are they and really see that this idea is limitless in possibilities.

I have plans for uploading videos of their in-class speech presentations and debates to set up evaluative discussion groups, using the forum features to set up research groups for student learning teams, to set up a special forum to invite varied professionals into our NIng classroom to have weekly themed discussions about different careers and educational paths, and even to use the IM feature for kids to help each other with homework and writing assignments, they can even provide peer edititng for each other without ever leaving their homes.

The possibilities are literally endless and I'm excited to see where this takes us.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Florence Dujardin on October 15, 2009 at 5:59am

Hello Pilar
The discussion has moved on to consider Moodle, so I don't know if you're still interested in comments about Ning. But just in case, here it is.

I would like to revise my first opinion about Ning for teaching (posted last July). I am now using Ning with a group of colleagues in a big scale project and I am finding usability issues. All the features that make managing a big online discussion are missing from Ning: there's no overview of fora discussions, no possibility to display discussions in reverse chronological order, no search facility, and no possibility to print only the messages you want (and yes, I know about print 'selection'). So I wouldn't use Ning for teaching an entire e-learning module and would rather use Blackboard, Moodle - or a platform that offer similar features. I would reserve Ning for small tasks within a module, eg group tasks or a short-term task such as as online focus group.

Which leads me to a general conclusion (well, not mine really, but that of Jenny Preece in her book on Online Communities): for an online community to thrive, sociability factors are not enough; the usability of the chosen platform is also a key success factor. But since we're talking about social media, it might be more appropriate to talk of a chosen ''ecology', since one media (medium?) can't do everything.

I hope this is of use.

Best regards

Florence

▶ Reply to This

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page