Week 13 Evidence of Learning: A tool not yet explored - Ning

In these final posts of my e-portolio, I wanted to explore any tools that I have not tried yet. Today I thus created a Ning for anyone who attended the Overseas Chinese Youth Language and Study Tour (aka the Loveboat) in 2000. I thought it would be a good network to create as there are people both locally and internationally who were on the trip, thus spreading the "net" of the network wider than just Vancouver. People attended this trip from various parts of the northern hemisphere: Canada, the United States of America, Britain and France.

I regularly meet up with a group of friends from this trip, but I have lost touch with anyone who lives outside of Vancouver. This would be a neat way to get in touch. As you can see though, I am yet to invite anyone. I think I should consult with my group of friends when I see them next - I think they would be puzzled if I did something like this without them. However, I have a feeling that I will be explaining to them exactly what a Ning is!

To think about how this tool would play out my teaching practice: I have to admit, I am not too sure. There are interesting features of this network, but being able to chat, add videos, content and events are things that I can already accomplish in our learning management system; it would be redundant to use two websites for the same thing. I also understand the idea of having a network with your students, but as I said before, teachers are already piloting having a facebook group for our student population. As a result, the addition of Ning seems unnecessary as of right now.