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?

[Gerald Ardito]

I have just started using a Ning with one class of my 8th grade Life Science students.
The week before I started with them a met with their parents and went through what I would be doing, how it would work, and what I thought the benefits would be to their students (especially collaboration and freedom). The parents were thrilled. (If you want, you can listen to a podcast of my conversation with them here.)

So far the students are totally into it.

I think my 7th graders would love it, but they are under 13, so I don't know how to get around COPA.

[Gerald Ardito]

Thanks for being willing to listen to the podcast.

I agree that we should put our heads together to see what we can do about SNs for the under 12 gang. If the Ning is by invitation/membership only, I don't really understand the issue.

[Katie Hatch]

Thanks for posting your podcast. I am going to use ning with my 8th grade art class and listening to your podcast gave me confidence. I am a second year teacher so this is kinda scary territory!

[Gerald Ardito]

Katie,

I am glad the podcast was useful.
I totally understand about being a second year teacher. It may be scary, but I think you will find yourself centered and empowered by what happens with your students.
If you need anything as you go, just give a shout.

Gerald

[judibea]

I would appreciate an ELLUMINATE on this topic. I went with WIKIS and particularly pbwiki as I could enter in the students with usernames/passwords versus usign e-mail address as the participating teachers had principlas that had cold feet about "online engagement" of their studetns. Soooo we entered into the experience of collaboration, sharing, engagement online in what they would be more comfrotable with ----

As I recall, someone in my personal PLN suggested there is an equivalent of a NING for 12 somethings---heard anything?

[Russel Montgomery]

I'm open to an ELLUMINATE but time zones are the killer for me. I'm on the other side of the planet 12 hours out of sync.

I'm currently setting up a Wordpress mu for my students, I'm going to start small. I have a tutor group of a dozen kids that I meet with once a week. I'm going to start with them as a trial.

My next project after that will be to set up a moodle and then an elgg after that. I have a number of small singular purpose tools such as voicethread in the pipeline as adjuncts to the major tools (Wordpress, Moodle, and Elgg).

My goal is to create an a classroom without walls for each of my year groups so that I can move their math learning away from "The Teacher" and "The Brick Box".

I don't know about you but my students are already living in a world for which school as we know it can not prepare them.

[Adrianna Ramirez]

I had a question about using the WIKIS to enter in students with usernames/passwords instead of using email addresses. Could you post some instructions on how I would go about doing that. I am new to this NING network and am looking to gettting it up and running in my sixth grade classroom.

Thanks!

[Erin Wyatt]

Hi,
I'm really fascinated by to read about how Nings are being used in middle schools.
One quick question for those of you trying this tool out, are the school librarians involved in the effort at all? Is there a presence of the library within the Ning environment?

On the topic of permission slips, I (a school library media specialist) have been working with some classroom teachers on wiki-based research projects. We developed a wiki use agreement at our school (adapted from a couple of other documents.) I'll post it here in case anyone would like to adapt it for use in a Ning environment.

Erin

[Gerald Ardito]

Erin,
This is helpful. Thank you.

[marcotuts]

I'd love to talk to someone about this trend with blog usage in the classroom. Not many teachers have done this, but many who have are creating truly unique experiences for kids. This should be spread!

I'm a student from Olin College of Engineering who is taking a year off with 5 other students to work on a substantive, real world project. We're focusing on middle school education, and would love to talk to anybody who has done anything they think is particularly cool or unique at the teaching level. It's ok, sometimes it is good to brag ;) Shoot me a message, email anything!

[judibea]

Well, can't say brag but I could say that I have a colleague who used Voice Thread with his health class---pretty cool. I'm using a WIKI for "beyond classroom walls" sharing about reading interests between 4 classes and 4 schools (4 teachers, 4 classes, a more that 4 books). Its interesting 2 me as I watch them decide they donw't want a page about a book they want a page about WHAT they like to read and get others to comment on THEIR page. One school posted videos on SCHOOL TUBE and got highlighted! That was cool.

[Alicia Britt]

I used pbwiki for my 8th grade team when we did our primary source research projects; it's an integrated project with the social studies teacher on my team. It was my first attempt at a totally paperless research project. I don't ever want to go back to paper. For their product, they created web sites (on weebly) for social studies. On one of the pages they posted their research papers. The kids got into it far more than in past years. We also used a blog to post reading responses all year.

At the end of the year, I used elgg to build a social network for my students to post their writing, including reading response journals. My students loved it. They were asking to check their accounts in other classes and ended up doing their final math project on the network, as well. Kids from other 8th grade teams started asking if they could make accounts. I teach about 80 students and ended the year with over 120 on the network.

Unfortunately, Elgg turned out to be a little more time consuming to build and improve than I had time for. It may be easier for others, but I struggled a little. My team ended up being a pilot for the school. We have switched to Ning for ease of use and cost (they removed the ads for free) and are going school wide this year. We now have the support of our technology, media, and literacy coaches. The teachers who have started using it love it. I am so excited to see all of the cool things that our teachers and students come up with this year.