Submitted by Fran S. (6/1/09)

Ning – the education-friendly social networking site

References and more information:

http://www.techlearning.com/printablearticle/14314

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23892_3

http://www.edutopia.org/node/4259

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22396_5

Last year, I developed a class Ning for each of my IB Spanish classes. Within “The Ning,” as my students call it, each member has a homepage, including a section to update one’s profile, photos, video, online discussion panel, comment wall and a personal blog section. On The Ning, each week on my page, I write an entry in my blog, which the students check each weekend. I usually post a question related to school happenings or material in the Unit we are studying at the time. At intermittent intervals, I also post pictures, poems, and videos to spark their interest. As a regular weekly homework assignment, students have until Monday night to answer my posed “question.” After they post their (100-word) entries, I then go to their blog area within their personal pages, and provide feedback. I also require that classmates provide feedback to each other within The Ning regarding their posts. Usually my students are only on The Ning to complete assignments, but I have witnessed some entries where they chat or include personal components.

What I like most about The Ning is that I have required that everything on there be written in Spanish. As an educator, I haven’t found a more comprehensive tool than The Ning to develop their communication and writing skills. As I said, we utilize it on a weekly basis, and even sporadically over the summer term, as to develop a coherent and complex communication vehicle.  

As I have been trained in countless Education classes, I try to employ Bloom’s Taxonomy when creating my lesson plans. Now with the integration of technology in the classroom, one needs to take into account where these new skills lie in reference to the chart, and with the ultimate goal of students performing “HOT(s)” (using Higher Order Thinking Skills.)  I will reference below how The Ning helps me achieve my classroom goals:

Remembering: Between myself and the student, and the student with another student, they are collaborating and networking with classmates on The Ning social network.

Understanding: Students read my Blog topic in Spanish, and then write their task-specific journal entry. Within their replies, they sometimes categorize and organize classroom grammar and vocabulary lessons in order to write their comments.

Applying: Students sometimes find a photo that visually demonstrates what they are writing about, which entails an uploading and sharing segment. Within their blog entry, students implement new vocabulary and grammar structure in their writing.

Analyzing: Students periodically provide evidence of course content within their writing, and have gone on the internet and linked other outside Webpages to their entry. In their search for appropriately related material, students are validating and verifiying their entries. Alongside this, students have used Delicious to tag related sources on Webpages.

Evaluating: Students are required to write their reflections on what I may have posted and on what classmates have written in their blogs. They have also posted comments to The Ning’s online discussion board. Students have made personal decisions to contact and communicate with particular members of the class within The Ning’s blogs to collaborate on “Oral Quiz” scripts. At times, they have critiqued each others’ entries, and later responded to them with a post.

Creating: Using video cameras to film themselves; and mixing music players, videos, pictures and written script within the Windows MovieMaker program, students have produced original products. Students demonstrated vision through a written draft on a Storyboard, understanding of Spanish class communication skills, and then combine it all to create their Spanish Project. These products were later published on The Ning. Students also maintain a class Wiki on Wetpaint to organize vocabulary and grammar lessons, as well as collaborate on “script” documents to be used for class debates. Within their blogs, they will create a link to a particular class Wikipage.

     To see an organized breakdown and explanation of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy within a “Learning, Teaching and Assessing” realm, please check out this informative article below: 

Churches, Andrew. “Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally.” Tech & Learning, April 1, 2008. http://techlearning.com/article/8670

To see the "skeleton" of how my Ning site is set up, check out this student's personal page. I have copied it into Word, so the information remains the same, but the set-up and design are of course different that it appears on the website. I cannot create a direct link, as I have made the site private.

Sample Ning page: Krista's page 

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