Ning - Creating a Social Network

I really like Ning as a place to create your own community for your class.

I like the fact that you are all connected to the one front page and lots of media and files can be added for student use. I think this type of place is great for cybersafety and directing students to the places you want them to be at when using computers in class.

It's like having your own private facebook or myspace and would be a great place to place assessment tasks and links to online activity.

Ning is definately worth checking out and joining a group that you sparks your interest.

A side note though, I set up a Ning for my Biology class, invited the other biology teachers, put up some resources; thought the Ning looked groovy and thought it could be a valuable tool for teaching senior students and for them to have a meeting place and a common interest. After doing this and getting to school the following day I found that Ning doesn't work properly on my school network (first of all it was blocked on the network and I had to get it unblocked) and when it did finally load all the design elements are taken out it's design was lacking and looked terrible (something from 2000!).


There is another platform we are looking into (Elgg) but just initially after using it I have found it a little harder to use than Ning but it is a beginning. When I know more about it I will post about it. I haven't had time to go much further than sign up, set up a page and give my technical support a hard time :=)

But Ning would be great if only we could get proper internet use in schools. Please talk to all important people about what filtering does to Internet use in schools.