We had a presentation in class on Ning.com, a social networking, online tool that provides free space and interaction tools for group networking. The instructor set up a Ning site for the CI5323 class members and we have been using it to communicate with each other. Ning provides tools, such as, blogs, email, video uploads, photo uploads and albums, and personal space as well as others, to enhance the social networking and interaction on the site. I have enjoyed checking-out the site and can think of several ways this tool might be used for a course, or for family communication.
As much as I find the site appealing and useful to group sharing, there are a few things that I am not too excited about. The site, while glitzy, is distracting for me, personally. I am finding it difficult to locate specific areas and to navigate the site tools. The learning curve, while not steep, is cumbersome to just getting started with this site. It was good to get a presentation on Ning.com in class and I know that for very specific purposes, I would definitely utilize this tool.
The one thing I really like about the site is that as administrator, it is possible to curtail certain linking activities and set-up administrative approved member sign-in and viewing. Utilizing this tool for a class might work best for older students--since there are advertisements that may be inappropriate or distracting to younger students. The creation of personal pages is also a very good feature and would allow a teacher to portfolio course work for each student in one place so that sharing between the student community would be a possibility. The best feature for myself being quite busy and having several sites going at once, is the email notification of content changes, requests for approval, and other changes, which are directly linked from the email so that changes are only a matter of acceptance or non-acceptance.
Overall, I think ning.com is an online tool that has great possibilities when matched with course objectives and community behavior goals.
Hello world!
5 months ago
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