Weekly Reflection: Ning's the Next Best Thing

Ning may sound funny, but I found out it means business. It's a teacher-student networking site which, to be honest, I didn't even know existed until today. When we were discussing its uses and applications in class, I was struck with all the simple tools that could help so much with the problems in classrooms today. That sounds like the sweeping statement of an idealistic (or pessimistic) undergraduate, so I'll be more specific as to what I mean.

1.) The Teacher-Student-Parent Circle of Communication. I know. Jazzy sounding. But from my own experience as well as the experiences of many others, it's clear that innumerable times there are miss-communications between these three parties. Parents don't know what their kids need to be doing and if their child seems to be slacking they may blame the teacher, who may, in turn, blame the parents for not doing a good job of teaching their children to follow directions, and the child may occasionally get a lash from either side or otherwise stay out of the whole mess. If parents can go online to know what their kids need to keep up with, then accountability is entirely on the student and there are no blame games. Nothing lost in translation. A love triangle, but connected with understanding instead of creepiness. 

2.) Classroom Unity. It's been shown that students in most classrooms never end up knowing more than a handful of other students in their class even after being together for a year. With a networking site where students get to discuss classwork with each other (outside of the classroom, no less) they get to know each other and form bonds that can strengthen their sense of classroom security as provide resources for help they may need. Study groups no longer have to involve shuffling around awkwardly trying to make eye-contact with peers--it's as simple as "friending" someone and leaving them with comments and questions.

3.) Homework Help. Sad but true--not every child has a parent who is able and/or willing to help them with their homework. With the online chat feature of Ning, this problem is also remedied. If the teacher or volunteer parents let the students know they are on the chat for certain hours during the week, students can get the help they need even if the help isn't in the house.

Of course, there are a few downsides to be considered. What kind of technology do the students have access to in their homes, schools and communities? How tech savvy are the students? Regardless of the few problems that may come up with using Ning and other related sites, I couldn't believe how helpful it sounded. I felt like all teachers should receive training for it right away so they could create better learning environments for their students, but I can at least feel grateful I have knowledge about these helpful tools for my future classes.   

Blogs, Google Reader and Twitter

I've decided to start following the blogs listed below:

Cliff's Notes

Dangerously Irrelevant

The Tech Savvy Educator

Kconger's Posterous 
 
The Thinking Stick

Cliff's Notes and Kconger's Posterous are both recommendations from the class that look very helpful, so I thought I would tap into that. The other blogs I discovered on my own and look very interesting. Dangerously Irrelevant has a focus on the future of schools and things that teachers should be aware of today. The Tech Savvy Educator is a sharp looking blog that has the same focus as our class--integrating technology into teaching. The Thinking Stick has up-to-date information about new technology and how technology can be used to help students.



Concerning Twitter, I looked around for a while before choosing two people to follow, but I decided on AuntyTech and ChristyWhite3. AuntyTech's real name is Donna Baumback and her focus is on the power of the library in schools, especially the libraries media capabilities in helping kids in the classroom. Christy White has interesting posts about projects her students are working on. These projects deal with technology and seem to be tapping into the creative juices of her eighth graders.



I think the most useful resource to me would be Cliff's Notes. There are a ton of relevant articles about technology in relation to education and the site is easy to navigate and current. I feel like my eyes have really been opened as to how much is out in cyberspace, not just to entertain but to help with educational pursuits.  

Let the Games Begin!

For my first post on this blog, I will tell you how I normally go about finding cheese.

Step 1: Locate refrigerator in household kitchen. It is usually in a corner. Not always.
Step 2: Open refrigerator door and search shelves for package labeled cheese.
Step 3: Locate the cheese and enjoy.

Simple enough. It's not the most exciting process, and most people would probably be able to condense it into just the third step (no offense to those who need the other two steps), but the process of finding the other cheese of which I speak--the proverbial cheese of incorporating technology in teaching--is much more complex and exciting. More exciting for me because, well, I'm just not good with technology.

Sure, I text and email and can navigate through word processors and the like, but . . . blogging? What does it mean to follow someone? Isn't that a little creepy? What's all this stuff on Google? I thought it was just a search engine. To further illustrate my ignorance, a friend of mine once told me she had just tweeted and I said, "How embarrassing!" It was a joke, but it still mirrored how I felt about all this social networking business. Ignorant. In fact, there's a video about the first tech support in history that makes me feel a little better and a little worse all at the same time about my technology predicament.

But thank goodness for this class! I hope to be able to learn about all of the things mentioned above as well as other things I didn't even know existed. I would list them, but . . . I don't know what even exists. It's not the most ambitious list, but hey, you have to start somewhere. Most importantly though, I want to be able to learn how to find new technologies on my own so that after I graduate, I'll still be able to search out my own cheese without referring to my previous list and coming up pretty short. 

On my blog, I added a few widgets. These widgets include a search bar and a Twitter link. I think the search bar is useful because if I (or anyone who happens to stumble on my page) want to find a piece of technology I wrote about quickly--bam! It's possible. Also, once I start going on Twitter, the posts that will be posted on my blog page as well can be a fun way to flesh out the blog and connect more fully to my personal learning environment.