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.

[Lexie Weitzel]

I want my students to collaborate with other students about the 2008 election in the Fall of 2008. Would you be interested in setting up a social network for our students? What grade do you teach?

[Elise Mueller]

Greetings from the Great Northwest! I am excited about using ning in education. I set up a network for the 200 or so teachers who won Enhancing Education Through Technology grants offered by the state of Washington this past spring. This is a diverse group, teachers who have not used technology in the classroom much at all to Technology Integration Specialists.

My kiddos are young, eight through eleven years old, so I am not certain a ning site would meet their needs. I am planning to work with our PTA though, it seems to me that a ning site for parents and community members would be a great solution to the communications problems that can't seem to be met with a weekly bulletin.

Thank you Steve for setting up this site!

[Steve Hargadon]

I can tell you that my 9-year-old is a great Ning lover...

[Steve Hargadon]

Love the idea of a PTA/parent/community network. Hope you will keep us posted if you set it up.

[Linda Loder]

Hi, I'm Linda from Central Kansas. I'm the coordinator of integrated technology for an area service center that currently serves about 75 member districts plus several private and parochial member schools as well. I love ning, even though time constraints don't always allow for me to post a lot. I learn a lot from reading here, and I'm one of those who 'lurks' in a lot of ning sites as well as many blogs.
I regularly use two ning sites. One of them, S H Learning Community is private and I'm luring in co-workers to experiment with it. I'm hoping they will become hooked on the learning available through this type of networking! The other one I'm using, TeachStrong, is for teachers who are using instructional technology both as learners and as teachers. This one is starting to grow and I expect it to become a very valuable learning site for teachers. I have a group set up within TeachStrong for teacher leaders, called I-Teams, who support IT in their own schools. Currently, we have nineteen teachers in three schools beginning to participate in this learning group. I'm excited about the possibilities!

[Steve Hargadon]

There's nothing wrong with "lurking." It's a great way to learn. Have you put TeachStrong on the wiki? Will be interesting to hear your reports on it.

[Ivette Figueroa]

Hi linda,

My name is Ivette Figueroa from Orlando Florida. Educators have a direct effect in the future of our next generation of leaders. I am new to ning site. I'd like to hear more about TeachStrong.

[Mike F.]

Hi. My name is Mike and I teach second grade in Southampton, MA. I also travel around the country during the summer training teachers in elementary mathematics. I am new to Ning so have little experience with it. I am looking forward to learning the different ways teachers are using it.

[Steve Hargadon]

Mike:

Do you use any other Web 2.0 tools for teaching elementary mathematics?

Glad to have you here!

[John Norton]

Steve, thanks for making this happen. Like so many others who have posted, I'm an encourager and sometimes builder of virtual communities. My name is John Norton, and I live in the mountains of western North Carolina where I work (thanks to DSL) as an education writer and independent consultant. My colleague Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (also a new member) and I are entering the third year of a 21st C literacies project in Alabama, with several dozen schools and several hundred teachers. We're hoping to use Ning this year as our VLC setting, so look for feedback about ways we think Ning could be most attractive to online educator communities.

Some of our Alabama work is described in a new website: http://www.abpc21.org/ Stories, reports and links to various teacher/student projects. While many of the projects are still "entry level," there are some inspiring and innovative things going on, including the field trip documentation project at high-poverty George Hall Elementary in Mobile, AL. Check out the digital divide story to see some of that.

I look forward to hearing what everyone else is up to!

[Laura Gibbs]

hi John, I had to smile reading your post since I too am using the magic of DSL to live in rural North Carolina while teaching virtually elsewhere (Oklahoma) :-)

[Steve Hargadon]

Glad to have you here. With SNB as your colleague, you come highly recommended! Will look forward to hearing about the work that you do.