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]

Hey, if you can invite your daughter to participate, I'm going to invite my brother!

Ning is a great fit for what he is doing. And I think it will be interesting to see what kinds of things he will need to customize/modify for it to work for him. I remain convinced that one of Ning's great appearances this year will be as conference social networks.

[Andrew Hargadon]

Thanks for the welcome, Connie. If you knew us growing up, you would not have guessed we'd land so close together on this front, but it's a fun place to be.

[Frances DiDavide]

Hi all, I am a Technology Support Specialist in an Elementary and Middle school environment. I am very new to Web 2.0 applications and Social networking. I came to computers later in life and have had a great time learning to use and enjoy them. I feel strongly about the need to integrate technology into our educational system and am anxious to learn more about this setting and how it might be useful for teaachers.

[Steve Hargadon]

Welcome, Frances! I feel strongly, too! Can't wait to hear more from you.

[Steve Hargadon]

Glad to have you here, Michelle. :)

[Richard Smart]

Hi. I'm a social studies teacher at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, MD. I love using technology in the classroom and would like to help my students develop their tech skills in a savvy way. What is the best way to get students involved in this network in safe and educationally sound way?

[Steve Hargadon]

OK, I'm going to wait for Andy Pass to respond, since he's one of the resident social studies gurus. I think you'll have a lot to talk about. In the meantime, welcome!

[Andrew Pass]

What areas of social studies do you teach? There are so many different ways that a social network site like this could be used in the social studies. Here's just one example if you happen to be studying world history. Why not try and contact teachers/students in the countries or regions that you are studying and ask them to help your students develop a deeper understanding of what they consider to be the most important contributions that their nation has made to the world stage. These students might post pictures and videos that shed light on these contributions.

Obviously this above idea could be used in U.S. history as well.

Just a thought!!

[MizLit]

Hi all, Carrye from Northern CA. I this is my ninthe year teaching high school English -- I've taught all grade levels, regular and honors/AP. I'm a social geek and found out about this site via Twitter (following educators on Twitter is fascinating!). I haved used other social network sites to collaborate with teachers from all over. I'm excited to find a place that is just for us!

I have toyed with the idea of doing some blog projects for classes, but as I'm at a new school this year, I need to get other ducks in a row before I start doing anything too "different." :)

[Steve Hargadon]

Hi, Carrye! Welcome from another Northern CA resident! I'm in the Roseville area.

Twitter... Hmmmm... I like you already!

[Kieran Ryan]

Hi,

I'm teaching secondary Film, Media and English in Hong Kong and I'm very interested in using some of these new communication technologies in education, especially since attending the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai recently (http://learning2cn.ning.com/). This network is just what I've been looking for, and I'd really like to start making connections with like-minded teachers around the world, mostly to check out how they use such technologies in class, but also with a view to getting some collaborative projects up and running. We've already had success with ning, wikis and so on, but since we are currently becoming a laptop school, it's clear that we can do a lot more.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to sharing ideas and experiences!

[Steve Hargadon]

Great to have you here, Kieran. I was really excited that Jeff used Ning for Learning 2.0.