Ning for under 13?

[Mr. Cena]

I was searching through the posts today and found that Ning is unavailable to students under the age of 13. I created my Ning that I planned on using with my 7th grade students back in May, and have been working on updating it ever since. Only today did I find out about this rule. I planned on using it in conjunction with my Literature circles unit I was going to begin next month. But, it seems the work I have done and the permission slips I have collected are pretty much unusable.

I have read a number of posts from teachers of 5th, 6th, and 7th graders who use a Ning despite the age requirements. My question is how did you get around this? I'm not comfortable having my students change their birth year in order to get them in.

Any suggestions on how you managed it would be greatly appreciated.

[Fran Lo]

I'm using Moodle instead, using www.globalclassroom.us. They are very helpful. It's about 9 bucks a month.

Fran Lo

[Merle Hall]

Thanks for the link.

[Merle Hall]

This is a very interesting site Fran. Are there any tutorials on how to create class or groups? I could see the possibilities for using the global classroom site instead of Ning.

[Merle Hall]

If you ask me Ning has set up a bad situation. I know in my case I have been looking for an alternative. Not that I want to leave Ning, I really like it, but I don't want to violate policies either. I can see a mass exit if teachers find and affordable alternative. I know my school has been promising me Moodle for several years. I have even looked into hosting it myself at a local ISP. Even if a site like globalclassroom is not as user friendly it is still a good alternative and it looks like it will do the same things that I can do on Ning.

[Sheri]

Have you read: http://education.ning.com/page/page/show?id=1027485:Page:45750

Seventh grade students can use a ning if they are 13.

Sheri