May 8, 2008
EDUC 628
Spring 2008
Jady Skaggs
The Social Network that I finally decided to join and write my
ethnography on was Ning. I had never heard of Ning, until Dr. Lowell
mention it in one of his emails to the class. Then it caught my attention on
Classroom 2.0, which I had joined first, in an advertisement on the side. I
decided to see what it had to offer, because it seemed like it would be
beneficial and interesting too.
Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreessen created Ning, an on-line platform
for users to create their own social websites and social networks, which are
created around specific interest such as art, music, business, education an
many others topics.
One bonus of Ning is the choice of choosing one interest area to join or
different ones to join and become a member of. Education was the topic
area I chose. There were twenty-three pages of networks to join just in
education. Ning in Education, looked different and Steve Hargadon was the
creator, so I joined it. The biggest problem here is trying to decide which
network group to join, because there are so many network groups in each
topic. It definitely makes it hard to choose.
Now once you have become part of a network, you get to make a
personal page with your information. This page will keep track of all of
your discussions in the forum. The forum is a good place to post questions
and make comments on other members’ questions. The problem here is
that feedback on questions is not always immediate. Steve Hargadon is very
good about answering questions and making comments, but the rest of the
group is slower about answering.
Another neat thing about this network is the video tab, which has some
good informative videos on different ways to use technologies and
educators views on different subjects. A member can add videos to this
network too. One problem with this would be a member adding something
that did not go with how Ning can be used in education. The photo tab is
just a bunch of pictures being shared by members. Most of them have
nothing to do with education, but the potential of Ning to be used in
education is obvious. I can see the photo tab being very important in other
topic areas of Ning.
Ning has several other tabs that make it as cool as the other networks.
The gadget tab was fun. You can put a gadget on your profile page. There
are six pages with popular gadgets like twenty-four hour radio, a variety of
music videos, some video games and other gadgets to choose from. The
only bad part is you can only use one gadget at a time.
The most important thing that this social network site gives you is
connections to members who are interested in the same topic as you are.
These members are extremely helpful and have tons of resources to share
with you. There were several things I found in Steve Hargadon’s wiki.
Ning compared to the other social networks is a great one. You can
write a blog, invite friends, share photos or videos, join interest groups, and
keep track of all of it in this network. I would recommend this network over
all the other ones I have looked at, because it can be professional, or it can
be personal without the uncomfortable feeling of not fitting in. I notice
several classmates complained about not feeling comfortable in Facebook or
MySpace. As an education tool, Ning would be perfect for creating your
own network.
Works Cited
Ning. (2008). In wikipedia.org [web]. Retrieved 4/28/2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning
Hargadon, Steven. (2008). Classroom20.com. [web]. Retrieved 3/29/2008, http:// www.classroom20.com
Andreessen, Marc. (2008). In wikipedia.org [web]. Retrieved 4/02/2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen
Bianchini, Gina. (2008). In wikipedia.org[web]. Retrieved 4/02/2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Bianchinni
