Web 2.0 Learning Tools

K12 Learning 2.0: Tools for 21st Century Teaching & Learning THING “Twenty-Two” (Session Ten)  Task:  Reflections on NING Social Networks

Social networks are all over the internet. There are literally hundreds of these available to anyone. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are just a few of the popular ones.  With so many from which to choose, it can be difficult to belong to multiple sites and keep them updated.  Other sites, such as Ning, allows a user to create a customized community environment for others to join them within the Ning network.

Steve Hargadon created a popular network with an “educational” emphasis on the Ning Network called Classroom 2.0.  Currently, it has over 20,000 members.  Of course, since he is a paid consultant, he may have a slight bias to the Ning site.  His involvement has definitely helped Ning in their support of innovative uses of Ning in education providing ad-free networks for grade 7-12.  One of his articles described a problem that many are having when trying to monitor multiple groups on the network.  If I join 10 different groups or more in order to receive the flow of information from them, then, how can I make sense of all this and still remain sane?  Well, here is a quote from Ning’s 7 Things You Should Know brochure:

1. “The ability to utilize a separate tab or page for each Ning network I want to track;”
2. “The ability to easily copy the tab or page layout of one to set up others, so I don’t have to start from scratch for each network;”
3. “The ability for others to see or copy the pages, making it a usable model of an easily-customizable solution for other Ning users.”

Please read his article, Creating a Ning Dashboard, for more information.  It is interesting that he tried to accomplish this on iGoogle and Netvibes and was not able to do so.  Unfortunately, all three pageflakes links are broken and not working for whatever reason.  So, it sounds like a nice idea.

For me, I can see value in setting up a customized network community within our schools.  The problem is that there are so may networks and one could feel overwhelmed very quickly trying to monitor more than one network group apart from using other Web 2.0 tools.  What if our school website was transformed into a Ning Community?  Of course, we could still have our website link as a separate component.

This is an interesting idea to me because it opens up the possibilities of students, teachers, community leaders, business leaders and parents of contributing and interacting with each other in ways not possible by viewing a content only website alone.  By having forum discussions, everyone can discuss ways of meeting needs around the school.  Teachers can let the community know about things they are doing in their classroom in blogs, in pictures and even in video.  Others can receive update notices through their feeds to be alerted of all new information.  Using a social network tool could literally bring to life a stale, content-only web presence.

 ***Correction: Steve *was* a consultant for Ning, but have not been since December 2008.  Thanks Steve.  I would like to invite everyone to visit Classroom 2.0 when you have the opportunity.