Introductions

[Steve Hargadon]

Welcome! Please introduce yourself, let us know who you are and where you are from, and, if you are already using Ning in an educational setting, how you are using it.

[Steve Hargadon]

Such a pity your qualifications are so limited.... :) Ha! Great to have you here. Hope you'll give a lot of feedback.

[Lucy Gray]

Eek..... I hope I didn't go over the top with my involvement with things! :)

[Steve Hargadon]

No, it's GREAT!

[Patong Panda]

Hi, I'm an EFL monkey in South Korea. I remember when I was at school, all the teachers who couldn't even switch on the computer. Don't want to end up like them!!

[Steve Hargadon]

Yes, I would expect those days will not be much longer. But if you're here, then you're in no danger of ending up like that. How is the conversation on EFL Classroom 2.0?

[Audrey Hill]

Hi. I'm Audrey. I am a 7th grade English teacher in Westchester, NYC. I am not using Ning in an educational setting, yet, although I am a member of a couple of different Ning networks here. I haven't really participated in those networks much either, though. I think I have to work in rss feeds if I'm going to use it. I tend to forget that I'm listed here. I would like to use a Ning network in my classroom, but only if it can meet certain conditions required to be part of our toolkit. The most important of those would be privacy: which would include inability of outsiders to view, comment or join. This is already something Ning can do, but I think we'd also need to ensure inability of students to reach, view or search through other Ning networks while accessing ours and ability to redirect to a different domain name.

[Steve Hargadon]

Audrey:

Thanks for the comments. I think there is general agreement about the privacy concerns, which Ning does a good job with. The question of being able to access other Ning sites is trickier--but a private network has no direct links to Ning, so a student would really have to go looking to find other Ning sites. However, the problem is that if you unblock Ning, there is that vulnerability. Can you find out if Ning is blocked if you have access to www.classroom20.com, which is Ning-based, but has the domain setup?

[Susan]

Hi everyone, I'm tech coordinator in elementary school in Israel, in my spare time I scour the web looking for apps that will work with Hebrew (few and far between) I blog about these, at http://iteachr.blogspot.com (in hebrew of course). Luckily some web companies make their code available for translation, I finished translating Ning last week, and plan to move my existing network for Israeli teachers over in the next week or so, and also to work with my students in Ning in the fast approaching school year. I have also translated the interface of spresent.com to Hebrew and set up RTL templates for blogger and for wikispaces.
My greatest find this year was Classroom20, which has been a wonderful resource and a very supportive community. Thanks Steve and everyone else on Classroom20!

[Steve Hargadon]

Hi, Susan. Super-glad to have you here. Your customization of Ning makes you a huge resource. Would love to include your network(s) in the list on the wiki.

You are a great contributor at Classroom 2.0.

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

Hello All,
I'm Deirdre Bonnycastle and I provide faculty development for a small Canadian university. I have been a teacher for 35 years working with both people who have academic difficulty and people who are academically focused. I always seem to be on the cutting edge of some technology.

[Steve Hargadon]

Hi, Deirdre. Have you been used Ning either for faculty development work, or for academic work?

Glad to have you here.

[Joaquim Lopes]

Hi, my name is Joaquim Lopes and I'm a portuguese History teacher. In my school I am the person responsible for the computers. A few years ago I created a multimedia lab at my school and we produced (in collaboration with some 11-15 years old students) some multimedia material. Last school year I started using moodle with one fifth grade and one sixth grade classes. I'm interested specially in multimedia learning and e-learning.