NingEasterling

Ning

Brief Introduction of the Tool:

 * Ning is a social networking site.
 * Ning has many features including forums, groups, blogs, chats, and music.
 * People can share photos and videos and they can chat and blog on Ning.
 * There are many different themes and layouts available via Ning so that people can personalize their Ning site.

Overview:
http://indianaw200.wikispaces.com/NingEasterling

Social Media:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/living/2009/04/23/dcl.ning.bianchini.cnn.html

Tutorials:
http://vodpod.com/watch/201474-ning-tutorial http://www.slideshare.net/guestdc0cf0be/latest-ning-tutorial-december-presentation-830467 http://www.slideshare.net/englishmad/ning-tutorial http://ocrageoggcsenew.ning.com/profiles/blogs/ning-tutorial-by-anthony http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/27/ning-demo-video/

Ning is a social networking website. The advantages of using a social network is having the ability to communicate outside of the classroom. As a teacher you could use it to share information with the students. It also may be more effective than e-mail in situations where multiple students may have the same question and this way you would only have to answer once. It is a good opportunity for students to learn collaborativly by having access to materials and be able to ask questions amongst themselves. **Limitations of using Ning:** The limitations of using Ning from an educational standpoint would be that not all students are going to be able to have internet access from home. A communication tool is no good if the students can’t access it. Also trying to use Ning in the classroom may make for distractions if the students have access to chat and blog during lessons. Also, because this communication tool is an asynchronous one-to-many tool, if there was an important message, assignment, or set of notes that a student or teacher needed to receive, it would be hard for that person to access this tool immediately. In order to communicate effectively with other students and teachers, they would need to regularly check this site which would require not only a lot of time, but constant access to internet. Although this website can hold videos, photos, events, etc. it lacks the ability to communicate with other people live in a way that tools like //skype// could. I think that using ning in the classroom would be effective as a teacher by being able to provide resources for the students. You can add video tutorials, links to educational sites and give personal attention to the students. As a secondary social studies educator I think that using a site such as ning could be beneficial but don’t believe that it would be as successful in the elementary schools. Students will also be able to work with one another colaborativly when using a communication tool such as ning. I think that as a teacher it would be a good way to provide resources for students but can also so see social networking with students as being inappropriate.
 * Advantages of using Ning**
 * Ning in the classroom:**