code often works in posts, discussions and comments on Ning pages

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"If you're a teacher, what are you doing to foster collaboration among your students? And I'm talking more than putting them into groups of four and having the students create a PowerPoint presentation together. What are you really doing to fundamentally change the structure of your classroom from one of isolation (do your own work), to one of collaboration (work with others)? What are you doing to build their skills to succeed in a corporate environment that requires them to collaborate on a global scale? If you're a student, what are you doing to improve your own collaboration skills - and those of your peers? What are you demanding of your schools, your teachers, your administrators to help prepare you for the collaborative marketplace that is your future?"

"Ultimately, participatory media literacy is as much about a literacy of *participation* as it is a literacy of media. For, as Howard says, "a participatory culture in which most of the population see themselves as creators as well as consumers of culture is far more likely to generate freedom and wealth for more people than one in which a small portion of the population produces culture that the majority passively consume.""

it's one-stop shopping, since social networking sites are really just aggregates of Web technologies we've all grown accustomed to using. You typically get started by creating a profile page where you can send and receive email and instant messages, post and view photos and videos, write blog entries, participate in forums or discussions, and share documents, thoughts, and ideas.

Sue Waters wiki about PLNs - this page is how to set up your ning profile.

"I've been doing a few presentations on building your own personal learning network (PLN) and wanted to demonstrated the power of a PLN in action. My focus on PLNs was for two main reasons: 1. If our aim is to use online tools with our students we first need to be using these tools for our own learning to appreciate how they benefit our learning and to ensure we use them effectively with our students 2. Ability to receive and give advice in our normal f2f interactions is mostly limited. Personal learning networks greatly enhance our ability to get assistance, increase our learning, reflection and innovation. "

Mark Pesce's blog post"...these educational institutions assert that the lectures themselves aren't the real reason students spend $50,000 a year to attend these schools; the lectures only have full value in context. This is true, but it discounts the possibility that some individuals or group of individuals might create their own context around the lectures. And this is where the future seems to be pointing...."

"...The network is acting like a universal solvent, dissolving all of the boundaries that have kept things separate. It's not just dissolving the boundaries of distance - though it is doing that - it's also dissolving the boundaries of preference. Although there will always be differences in taste and delivery, some instructors are simply better lecturers - in better command of their material - than others..."

Out of the services that we review below, we found that Ning provides the best platform for setting up good-looking, sophisticated social networks with minimal effort. KickApps provides the best platform for integrating social networking components into existing websites. CrowdVine and Haystack are viable options for organizations that are looking for simple social networks to improve personalized communication online. CollectiveX is most suitable for existing groups that want to collaborate online. And GoingOn provides a promising hybrid solution with capabilities shared by both Ning and KickApps.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

More education. Less schooliness. Open Invitation to Join the Conversation at Our AP Literature Ning without commentsPrint This Post Print This Post Last week, I mentioned reading Jeff Wasserman's post about how schools teach bad writing (the 5-Paragraph Essay and other abominations). I mentioned how it made me "want to make my AP Lit class Ning public. We're having forum discussions about Organic Form v. Mechanical." The more I thought about atomizing those Ning walls and welcoming the world of people who like to talk about reading, writing, and how schooliness creates lifelong non-readers and non-writers, the more attractive the idea became. So whoever you are, if conversations such as the one below entice you to share your thoughts with my students about literacy in schools versus the literacy so many of us adults managed to grow into despite them (okay, maybe you were lucky and had good teachers, which would be interesting to hear about), then come on in. My students gave me permission to invite you.

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"I stumbled across Classroom 2.0 after reading an interesting article in the Village Voice on innovating learning efforts in the New York City Public Schools. These schools, instead of keeping kids out of social networking spaces and prohibiting the use of cell phones, were teaching kids how to use technology in an effective and relevant way."

blog post about why nings are a good thing in schools