Thing 22

I visited each of the Nings listed. My favorite was Educator Ning. I am not sure I will be using these with students quite yet. At this point it seems like a classroom Wiki will better meet my needs for the students. I can certainly see the advantage in using them as a resource for teachers to collaborate online and increase their own awareness of what is going on in the 2.0 world. I'm not saying a Ning would not be useful in a classroom. I think they certainly could be; I just have too many other options I'm planning on using first. I think the usefulness would also depend on several factors including the subject you teach, the technology skills of your students and the availability of computers at home or after school for your students.

I do not see the point of having students on a Ning in class very often as they would have the teacher there face to face. If they have the technology available to them after school either in the library, a computer lab, or at home then the usefulness of a Ning would certainly increase. A class Ning could certainly come in handy for students to communicate and help each other out if they are likely to be online at the same time working on their homework.

I think there is a future for these social sites to be brought into the classroom and I believe as teachers become more familiar with the technology through personal use, it will be easier to incorporate it into valid classroom uses.