Nings in the Middle School

[Sondra]

We are just starting to experiment with Nings in some middle school classrooms. The first to try it was a 7th Grade English teacher who wisely invited only 21 of his 84 students to join the Ning. These students read a "challenging" novel, The Red Scarf Girl, and used the Ning to discuss it. The teacher is now planning to expand the Ning to include all students in his "cluster". He will assign each student to one of twelve different science fiction novels, and create groups in the Ning to discuss each book. Last year we used blogs for his Science Fiction Genre Study Groups.

The Ning idea is contagious! Now the Social Studies teacher who works with the same "cluster" of 84 students is planning a SS Ning! This cluster is unique in our school because the students are part of a 1:1 pilot program; each leases his own iBook from our school. The students take the iBooks from class to class and may take them home.

We also have a 6th grade teacher who is planning on introducing a Ning within the next few weeks. This will raise interesting issues around access, as these students do not have their own iBooks. We do have mobile carts of 14 iBooks which teachers can schedule for classroom use, and we have two computer labs.

I'm curous as to whether others are using Nings in a middle school classroom, and, if so, for what subject, grade level or project? How have the Nings been received by students and parents? Do you have a permission slip for participation that you are willing to share?

[Lori Pickering]

I am a middle school art teacher from North Carolina. I am currently doing a 2nd masters at Full Sail University in Educational Media Design and Technology. I am beginning an Action Research project fro my thesis in this program. I have just begun to consider topics. I am circling around the usage of computers in the art room. I am also very intrigued by the subject of "Teaching Artistic Behavior" with an emphasis on technology.
Can you make any suggestions/
I am trying to figure a way to use blogging in an art curriculum and in what manner I can use Ning.
Thanks!
Lori Pickering

[Lena Gatza]

I love Ning and wanted to use it for my Mtah class. How are you getting around the age requirements? Some of my students are only 12.

[Russel Montgomery]

Lena

Just a thought: could we use another platform for Year 7?

I have had a quick look at elgg a while back. Then there is moodle.

I have no experience with these tools , but if they allowed us to do the "ning thing" with Year 7 ... ??

[judibea]

I think your Moodle idea might be a good suggestion. What Moddle source?

[Russel Montgomery]

Not sure yet.

I've installed moodle on a server but don't have the time at present to do any more with it.

[Alicia Britt]

Ning is so much easier to run than elgg.

[Rita Stebbins]

I have a Ning that I use with my 7th and 8th grade math classes. I started about a month ago and so far, so good. Each student has their own page and I approve all content (or delete as the occasion arises). I post work or word problems or information on a famous math personality as a blog and the students comment or solve. I did a class on Internet safety and our computer teacher reviewed her on-line educate for the classes. As of this date all seems good. The students are responding and they like the assignments. I have a web-page I could use but I liked the idea of the students having their own on-line community with just the students in our school. I approve all posts so no inappropriate material gets through. Yes, it is work an extra that I really didn't need, but it is worth it for the students to get the experience of working on-line. So many of them thought of the computer as a play tool. The Ning gives them a sense of work ethic, they must spell and grammar check all work and if I feel the student is out of hand with writing in any way I don't approve the post. I can then go to their own page and comment or make suggestions on how to better write up the comment. At this point I am one-on-one with the student and they are getting my individual attention. We also have a chat with the Ning. On a past snow day I had the students of one class meet me on line at a pre-set time. (we knew snow was coming) We had a great discussion on probability and the students were excited to share web sites they found and recommended to other students to check out that day. I am stepping up the page now and adding groups so each class (I have 4) will be able to communicate on what they are doing in their class. Of course the students added music, pictures, and applications to their individual pages but all had to be approved by me and I only rejected a few. I didn't get permission slips for participation, however our parents all sign them for technology with in the school and when I asked the tech teacher if it covered the Ning page she said as long as it is school related it did, so I let it go at that. On my school web page I posted a link for the parents to check out our Ning and I also posted a link on "What is Blogging for Adults". A few parents thanked me for that since they didn't quite "get it" at first. So many people think math is numbers they don't realize that the math relationship to the "real world" is important in the classroom. I guess that is the way of the past and the Ning is the way of the future. If you would like to check out our Ning please let me know. I am new here and since I am dealing with students I don't feel comfortable putting the address here yet. I'll keep you all up dated as we go on! Rita

[Russel Montgomery]

Rita

Sounds good.

How much extra time does it take to run the Ning?

[D Brown]

Hi Rita,
I'm new to Ning in the classroom as well. I belong to a Ning group for one of my ed classes and would like to try it in my 7th grade English classroom as part of a pilot project. We do have four laptops in my classroom, but most of my students don't have computers at home so this may be an issue. How can they sign up if they don't have email is another issue. I'm still thinking of how to work around this. I'm also trying to figure out the administrative aspects of the Ning mostly surrounding the acceptable use issues, monitoring and deleting comments etc. Your post has been most helpful! I'm glad I joined this group. Thank you.

[April Capuder]

A work around for signing up students without email accounts is creating a gmail account for yourself. You can then use this email address with a variation added to it. For example, if your gmail email account is [e-mail], you can use [e-mail] for student 1 and then [e-mail] for student 2, etc. The verification email is sent to your [e-mail] inbox which will have the link that you can click on to add the student to the NING.

I along with the entire 7th grade team of teachers are planning on launching a 7th grade NING for the 09-10 school year, which will include 112 students, 7 teachers, 2 paraprofessionals, potential parent access and hopefully, potentially a partner school that would like to join our private NING to allow collaboration for all students in the 7th grade between not only peers in own school but between students & teachers in the partner school. Any 7th grade teacher(s) interested in exploring the power of using the NING with our 7th grade students?

[Shirley Miller]

Hi April, I hope you are still checking this thread. I would love to have my students be part of your ning for the school year 09-10. I teach approx. 160 seventh graders language arts in northern CA. I am also planning on setting up a ning for my classes. I'm not sure whether I want to set up one for each period (seems more manageable for me) or one for all 160+ students. Anyway, if your offer is still open, I'm very interested in joining you. If this has been filled, maybe some one else inquired, and you had to turn them down, too. If you could put me in contact with them, maybe we can do something together.

Also, whether I get to join you or not, will the teachers here be able to view the ning? I'd love to see how it works out. Shirley

[April Capuder]

Hi Shirley,

Thanks for posting to my inquiry. I've emailed my LA colleagues regarding your interest. Our vision was to have your students and teachers you work with join our NING for the school year. As far as starting small with only one class period of yours or having all 160 students join our NING (all 110+ of our students will be members of our NING), we can discuss the pros and cons and make a decision from there. We'd love to have as many 7th grade teachers from your school join our NING to see the collaborative efforts between the students and possibly share an idea or two with each other.

Some general information about our school according to our 2008 State Report Card. We have a diversified student body: 49% white but most come from household where English is not the primary language (Polish and Bulgarian are languages spoken by parents) 44% Hispanic (parents primary language is Spanish) 5% Asian and 2% Black. 62% are qualify for reduced or free lunch and 8% have limited English proficiency. In 7th grade Reading, 73% of our students meet or exceed state standards. In 7th grade Math, 88% of our students meet or exceed state standards and in 7th grade Science (tested only in 4th and 7th grades), 82% meet or exceed state standards. We use a standards based grading system and report card for the past 5 years.

Our average class size is 20 students. We have 2 Humanities classes, 2 Math classes, 2 Science classes and 2 Reading classes per grade level plus music, art, U.S. Constitution and PE/Health classes. The special education teacher works as a co-teacher in the classroom with the 2 Humanities teachers. The Humanities teachers share a 2 classroom sized room which contains approximately 40 students, 2 Humanities teachers and 1 Special Education teacher each class period which is 1.5 hours long daily. The one science and one math teacher works collaboratively with the same paraprofessional. The paraprofessional is in every one of the teacher's classes and these classes have the special education students in them. The other math and science teacher do not have special education students but do have the English Language Learners but no paraprofessional in the classrooms. The math and science classes have 2 days of 1.5 hour length classes, 1 day that is an hour long and 2 days that are 45 minutes in length. The days that are 45 minutes long, the students go to the Reading Teachers the other 45 minutes instead of math/science. We have a daily common plan time with our grade level team members which we meet at least twice a week. Plus we have an additional daily common plan time with our grade level/subject teachers which we meet at least twice a week to plan collaboratively. When the plan times are not being used to meet as a grade level team or with our counterpart, we use the time as an individual plan time. Each plan period is 45 minutes in length and is back to back for a total of 1.5 hours of plan time daily.

I've emailed the LA/Humanities teachers to let them know of your interest. What are your ideas for how the students can collaborate with each other? What is your access to computers? At our school, each classroom has 6 desktops and we have a cart of laptops for each grade level team available to checkout. Plus on my team, the two science teachers each have 12 tablet computers available everyday in addition to the 6 desktop computers. Have you participated/created a collaborative environment for your students in the past like a wiki or blog? I created a wiki for my students last year for a project we were working on. The rest of the 7th grade teachers are new to using web 2.0 tools in the classroom. So it will be a learning experience for us. Can you share the title of the novels your students will be studying? I've asked the LA/Humanities teachers to email me the list so I can share it with you. We did some revamping of the LA/Humanities curriculum this summer, so I'm not sure which novels were selected for study. Do you use a writers' workshop format to teach writing? We will be using writers' workshop (Lucy Calkins ideas) to teach writing this year. This is the first year using her ideas in the middle school. This format was used in the 4th and 5th grade classrooms the past two years and is being phased in for use at the middle school.

Please email me directly so we can continue our conversation. [e-mail].

April