I spent my Friday night creating a ning site for my Spanish 2 classes. Exciting Friday night plans, huh? It was actually kind of fun though, I enjoyed changing the format and deciding what to put on, etc. I tend to get caught up in projects, and this one definitely kept me occupied!
I'm still very unsure whether I will actually put it into use or not. The collision of worlds - social networking meets school! - scares me a little (to a lot!). One think I really like about ning is that it can be specific to my class, and I have all the say over the content. And because it's academically focused (in my case) and not as well known (to my knowledge), it allows me to keep a boundary between my professional life and personal life.
I feel much safer using ning or some other site (as opposed to facebook) to incorporate social networking with my teaching...but I continue to weigh the awesomeness of my ning page versus my fear of social networking in schools. Most likely I will attempt to launch it in one (or all) of my Spanish 2 classes in the winter semester and see how it goes, and whether or not I want to use it in the future.
But for now...I'm the only participant on the site so I've opened it up for public viewing. Check it out: Señorita Aho's ning site! I would love feedback and am very interested to hear your ideas about social networking in education.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I just looked at your Ning. That's really cool! I am tempted to create one myself. What are the benefits of using a Ning over setting up a class website?
ReplyDeleteI agree - not too sure about combining personal/social and professional/educational aspects of life. I'm really glad that there's something like Ning out there. It seems really cool and I love that it can be controlled by the teacher and is guaranteed to be school appropriate (unlike say, our students' facebook profiles). Way to go on creating your own Ning! Have you used it in class?
ReplyDelete