In Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts Will Richardson calls Ning an "interest-based" social network which seems to be more applicable to education. One excellent example of an educational Ning is at http://ceetbc.ning.com/ (Community of Expertise in Educational Technology). Through this page, one can read commentary about educational technology, find resources, join specific interest groups and most importantly interact with other people with related interests. It fits well into my personal learning network.
My positive experience with this site made me want to try out a Ning site of my own, however contrary to the claim by Richardson that it is a free site, it has since eliminated the free account option. For that reason, it has become less desirable for the individual classroom teacher as there are so many free options that perform roughly the same functions.
SocialGO.com - http://libe477.socialgo.com/ <--try it out!
A competitor to Ning (Oct. 2005) that was established in 2008, SocialGO still retains a free version, and allows the user to setup a site, the functions of which somewhat resemble those of Facebook. Once the administrator has set up the site, individuals can
- join it
- update their status
- participate in discussions in the forum
- read news feeds (chosen by the administrator)
- add media such as video, photos, music.
- create a personal blog
- create or join a group
- enter an event in the network's calendar.
Security
At first, I chose to set up the site as a "public site", which allows those who are not members to view all content but not be able to post anything. There was also an option to set up as an "education" site, but after setup, I could no longer find that option. After a bit of searching through the administration page, I did find that by using the "tabs and pages" link, I was easily able to hide elements of the site by clicking on that element and selecting one of five privacy options.
Usage
SocialGO is quick to set up, and provides an excellent means for students to share their ideas and work in a separate and secure area. Unfortunately, only supports images or videos, but does not support the uploading of other file types. There are many ways to host files on another server and simply post a link to that file, but I would have expected this to be integrated in a social network used in education.
Alternatives
From my first-hand experience as administrator of my own school's Moodle, this is the best free tool for managing student interaction in a school environment. It is open source (free), and is a complete learning management system that can perform all of the same social networking functions as SocialGO. In addition, it is also able to track student progress, mark their participation in discussions, and is scalable to support either a single class, an entire school or even an entire school district. It is currently being considered for use at UBC, and is being used at various universities worldwide.
Its use can range from simply acting as a file repository for worksheets and class notes to actually *being* the class (distance learning). Its main drawback is that it takes some effort to set up, and it is not as user-friendly as a Facebook, Ning or SocialGO site. It is, however, designed for education - I would choose it for this reason alone.
