Ning versus Blog versus Wiki?

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Permalink Reply by Brian Mull on July 10, 2009 at 8:23pm

I like to think of a Ning as being a home base for everything. It gives each user their own space, and it allows groups to form around particular topics. If you need to collaborate on a particular topic, then you might branch off from the Ning into a wiki. There's not really a right way to do it. Find what's comfortable for your staff to use and go with it.

That being said, the Ning is free, so try it out. I think if you are going to begin using a tool like this with parents (which I think is fabulous), it is important to spend the time educating parents on ethical, moral, constructive uses of this type of space. I would hope that parents would respect the space if you lay out guidelines and remind them that they have the ability to provide a positive example to their kids. They should understand the certain discussions should not take place within this space.

At the same time, understand that while this Ning is wide open open, it is also possible to moderate postings and comments if so desired. Again, it's what your community is comfortable with. We do get from time to time, trolls who invade this space and annoy people. We try to deal with these situations as they come up as quickly as possible. For us, we want this space to be open and at the same time, we want to respect the rights and comfort of our community. Therefore, we patrol things here. Like any good community, it needs to be nurtured, or it can become overtaken by the negatives.

If you have anymore questions, let us know. Otherwise, good luck, and let us know how it goes.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Papera on July 10, 2009 at 11:24pm

Thanks for the input. I have the ning mocked up. I may leave the forum off for now. It appears to be the most wide open. Everything else can be controlled until I get to train the parents.

I sent a test group of teachers invites to the staff site and they are eating it up.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Mull on July 11, 2009 at 8:33pm

Well good luck with it. Keep us updated.

Rick Papera said:

Thanks for the input. I have the ning mocked up. I may leave the forum off for now. It appears to be the most wide open. Everything else can be controlled until I get to train the parents. I sent a test group of teachers invites to the staff site and they are eating it up.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Garcia on July 14, 2009 at 11:45am

I agree with Brian on this. I Ning would be a great way to go. Each teacher(if you so chose) could even have their own page on the ning in which they communicate with their students' parents, post updates, podcasts, vids, and photos.

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Permalink Reply by Valerie Burton on December 19, 2009 at 12:37pm

I concur. I use all three, but the Ning is the base for my class. I started using Edmodo and then I tried out Nings. I have not been back to Edmodo since. =D

Nings: I use them for the foundation of the course. Stories are groups with discussion forums attached to each group.
Blogs: I use 1 for daily assignment posting. (It is attached to my Ning as a Tab so that each day when logging into the Ning they click on the assignments tab and that directs them to the daily assignments posted to my assignment blog.)
Blogs: I use another one for corresponding with the world. We have only set up the space so far. No real work has been done I wanted to "train" them how to share on the Ning first. On the blog they will have to respond to on of my class generated topics and on their blogs they will post reading responses.
Class Wikis: I try to use them as file cabinets of information: calendars, topics to choose from, project guidelines, etc.
Student Wikis: They use this space to create pages: word wall, collaborative story telling, visual storytelling, etc.

Hope all of these comments help.

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