Reflecting Pools

This is definitely the age of social networking. It’s been around a long time in the face-to-face format, but now cyberspace is the place to connect, learn, create, and share.

My school has developed a Ning, complete with groups, forums–well, everything you could wing in a Ning. I’m currently in several groups, and I already have ideas for a few more groups.

One part of our Ning deals with updating curricular scope and sequence information for all the various grades and classes. I uploaded material for two classes this summer; and I have visions of updating as I go through the year, adding links to resources, adjusting essential questions or time lines, or adding some new technology ideas from our K12 Learning 2.0 class. The Ning makes the document dynamic–living and responsive to updating. It’s usable, relevant and a ready resource.

Some of us want to learn more about the technology we want to use in our classes. For example, I’m in a podcasting group, but I really want to see if there’s interest in a class wiki group. That is something I really want to use in all my classes this year. By allowing colleagues into the wikis and sharing goals, challenge, and triumphs in our Ning group, I think we could all become proficient faster than we each could by ourselves.

The wikis that I explored for Thing 22 were all for educators. In 7 Things You Should Know About Ning, Educause made a good case for having student Nings for academic learning communities. I could see how their examples would work in high school, but I was struggling with the idea of middle grade maturity. Then I found Schools and Online Social Networking by Nancy Willard, educator, lawyer, and specialist in “issues of youth behavior when using information communication technologies.” Although student Nings have the benefit of teachers instructing and modeling safe and responsible Internet behavior, there are definite supervisory and maturational risks with youth.

I plan to use Moodle, which is a virtual online classroom with some of the interactive characteristics of a Ning, but not quite so much freedom. I’ll use Google Docs and my class wiki for collaborative activities. I like the ability to know who has written or uploaded what, when. When 7th graders know they really can and will be held accountable for their actions (no anonymity), they rise to the occasion beautifully!

As I become comfortable and a bit more seasoned with our faculty Ning, maybe I’ll relent in the future and invite my students to my own. We’ll see.

Filed under: Learning K12 2.0 and tagged Google Docs, Moodle, Ning, social networking, wiki