Tag Archives: Allison Archer

PUWT 2008 – Session 3: What’s In A Ning? Online Social Netwoks in K-12 Education

IMG00226.jpg

Presented by Allison Archer

Started out with a Bob Dylan song about times and how they’re a-changin’.  Rolled right into dialogue on MySpace.  (Boo!  Hiss!)  Social Networking is cool and helpful, but MySpace gives it all a bad name.

Enter: Ning – a site that allows us to build our own social networks.  Plenty of collaboration, but also plenty of control.  The presenter created a Ning for her students to share with students in Thailand.

Quick mention about wikis – another way to collaborate.

Now talking about cultural differences encountered between her 2nd grade class and their Thailand partners.    It was a new experience they’d never thought of, so they needed to get used to it.  As teachers we ned to get them used to social networking. Would you put a 16 year old alone in a car with no lessons?  No, we have driver’s ed.