Saturday, November 15, 2008

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

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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.

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