The Will Richardson Project: Building Networks in Schools

For my professional development goals as an instructional specialist and future school administrator, I am reading a few articles by Will Richardson and posting my thoughts here. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments. Building networks in schools: creating your own social network is easier than you might think. District Administration - December 1, 2007

Summary: Today's student is all over social networking. Sites like MySpace and Facebook occupy our students' every moment outside of school. Now, with the highly adaptable Ning, educators can utilize social networking within the classroom (virtual or real) to teach them not only how to collaborate but also how to properly manage their social networks. Additionally, Ning could be utilized for professional development purposes.


What I Think: Ning has been around for a while, but I don't think it's properly caught on. Teachers seem to be turning to various versions of Moodle and related hosting sites. Regardless, a Ning is so highly adaptable that a teacher can disguise learning, collaboration, and interaction as social-networking. I belong to Nings for both my work in edtech and for my craft beer/homebrewing hobby. A friend has used a Ning for her college composition course. I don't know if the problem is interest or an over-saturation of social-networking. Either way, I'll be interested to see how things develop over at Ning.com.


How does this help me with my work? It's nice to realize that there is something out there that resembles a Moodle less and a Facebook more. I've had plans to start a Ning for teachers in my network, but they seem so bogged down with so many other networks. A good alternative is to simply utilize the Nings that already exist out there for eMINTS and to encourage their use whenever a teacher is looking for a new way to engage students.