I’ve been thinking a lot about groups lately. Back in December, Bud Hunt posted about whether more groups were really needed. We’ll set the impetus for that post aside, I raise the point only to say that I am now asking the same question…
In the last few months, Ning has offered an ease of creation that has fostered lots of little groups. Steve Hargadon has started a few. There’s one on cyberbullying, and a host of others. I got invited to join this one, and now this one.
This is getting ridiculous.
I’ve been thinking lots about Doug Belshaw‘s experiences with HistoryShareForum.
I want to raise two points…
1. The level of conversation found recently on the two Hargadon ning sites could me much more appropriately supported using traditional forum software. The use of friends, chatterboxes, and the like is not sufficient to overcome the lacking functionalities of the forum built into ning. Not to mention Steve is paying 20 dollars per month for the ad-free site when he could have installed one of the two open source boards or payed for vbulletin and came out ahead.
We as the edublogosphere need to rally around one central giant bulletin board if we want to have discussions on this level. The amount of discussion on Steve’s nings has been a bit dizzying, and the RSS feeds are greatly lacking. Why wait for Ning to fix this when we already have more appropriate solutions?
2. I am not sure why folks keep creating their own little networks on Ning and then inviting others to “join the discussion”. It is a great deal of work to find these other networks and decide to participate. If this were a more traditional forum, it would scale based on our need.
I realize that these are not web 2.0 ideas in terms of the technology, but if conversation and collaboration are at the heart of web 2.0 (as per O’Reilly), why are we waiting for Ning to reach a level where it fits us as opposed to using a more appropriate tool?
We need to unite as educators, not only in regards to tech, but writ large. We need a central hub where we can meet for collaboration, discussion, and good times. We need a community pub at the center of town where folks walk in for a bite, a pint, and a sit down. Ning is not that.
I guess my only feedback would be that there is something to social networking which seems to draw “regular” folks in–in a way that the other tools don’t. My whole goal for the Ning Classroom 2.0 site wasn’t to duplicate the other discussion forums, but to create a place where those who haven’t been participating can find a voice and get the benefits of feedback.
I hear you on the Ning craze Chris. I’ve joined two Ning networks and already I have a small collection of friends, invites to other Ning groups, and most recently discovered that one of my new “friends” was really an attempt to get me to a pornographic Ning group, blech!
I agree that a well-visited and thoughtful forum is probably the best place to disseminate ideas, but there’s a danger (or rather a risk) when a forum becomes too large. I’m a strong believer in the power of small groups and establishing a tone for any discussion (which is what a forum really is, just one long discussion). When a forum reaches a certain size it can be difficult to maintain that tone and follow all of the discussion. Then again, fragmenting those discussions by setting up different sites doesn’t necessarily improve the situation either.
I must confess I thought I was missing something about the ning thing. I’ve been invited to a couple of nings, got the obligatory “I want to be your friend” automated emails but I rarely find time in my busy schedule to visit yet another site and contribute. I love the centrality of my own blog, will contribute to a forum (rarely) when I have something to contribute but I don’t want to recreate my online identity every time I get involved in a collaborative project. Maybe RSS capability would make things more attractive because I’ve been spoilt – I want my information to come to me. A blog might not be the pub but it has a nice big welcome mat at the front door.
Funny, I just wrote about this, too. I’m most in line with what Graham has to say above. Ditto.
[...] and is burning brightly (but hopefully not out of control). Example one – I left a comment on Chris Craft’s blog about my lack of engagement with the new social networking site ning. Miguel Guhlin picked this [...]
Very interesting conversation going on regarding social networks! I got a link for classroom 2.0 a weeks ago. I thought I would check it out. Several of the “top” tech coordinators in my district belong to it. It really didn’t impress me. As a classroom teacher I am conservative on how I use my edublog energies. There wasn’t a lot of “content” I didn’t already have access through my rss. I didn’t feel the sites foster “real” conversations. The chatterwall isn’t much of a networking tool compared to applications such as twitter. I really do find the value of edublogging social networks but our time and efforts are better spent elsewhere. Any suggestions?
By far the most useful ning to me has been the private horizon project ning where we’ve worked to hammer out issues. I do think that blogs are evolving into more social networking type forums around a common interest and it remains to be seen what will end up. The nice thing about ning is that you can go and post and it will notify you if anyone replies.
However, I continue to think that it revolves around PURPOSE> What is the purpose for the ning? IS there something we’re planning, doing, discussing. I think another one of my favorites is stop cyberbullying b/c we have a purpose.
As for the others, I’m only a member of school2 and that is about it. You don’t have to join everything you get invited to and I would surely make sure that there is a purpose for what you do join!
[...] my blog will always be my hub, and maybe as adults, these networks (or groups or whatever) are not quite as important, but what about students that don’t have [...]