Ning as PD follow-up

I am in the midst of helping my building move forward through the use of personal learning networks (mostly RSS feeds for now). I have pitched this idea to my principal as a quasi-PD opportunity and he thinks its great.

I feel like "getting" information (via RSS) is only the first step towards making a lasting change. A logical second step is providing an avenue for educators to discuss/share what they're reading. This is where Ning comes in to play. I have setup a Ning for the staff to use to share resources, discuss ideas, etc. With this "setup" in mind, I have a few questions for the Classroom 2.0 community:

1) Has anyone else tried this sort of approach? If so, how has it been going so far? We're off to a slow start as far as "sharing" goes...I'm guessing this is pretty typical.

2) What do you see as the pros/cons of using Ning as a collaboration tool? (We had tried wikispaces previously, but it was not very user-friendly for the discussions we were looking to take place). What type of changes would you make to Ning if you were able to do so? In other words, what features seem to be missing from Ning that you wish you had...or that discouraged you from using it in the first place?

Tags: Ning, PLN, RSS, pd

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Permalink Reply by Sean Nash on November 15, 2009 at 3:24pm

You think so? That is interesting to me. I can't tell you how many times I have heard comments about innovation happening even in Missouri. I just find that interesting. Until this past year or so, I hadn't even given that a thought.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Alexander on November 15, 2009 at 3:38pm

There are pockets of innovation everywhere. I use to live in Overland Park and we had some stellar school leaders. I am in Northeast Ohio now and we have some very strong independent schools, which I am involved with as a consortium head. However, I always watch the coasts, both east and west, as the basis of measuring where things are heading. I particularly like the High Tech High system out in San Diego and some of the innovation that is happening in New York City through Joel Klein - the School of One and also a few other novel systems. I try and keep an eye on national and international education trends....