Alternatives to Ning

As I wrote the other day, Ning will be phasing out their free service.  Today I ran across a few lists of alternatives:

• “Ning… where to go when the public square charges an entrance fee?“
• “LEARNING TOOLS DIRECTORY 2010: Social Networking & Collaboration Spaces” (mentioned in “115 Social networking and collaboration spaces” by Jane Hart, who also links to her “Comparison of Twitter, Facebook, Ning and Elgg“)
• “Ning Ends Free Networks – Try These Alternatives“
• “Alternative Solutions from JP of Skins4Ning – Freemium Social Network Alternatives“
• “No Free Lunch for Ning Users; Still Plenty of Bargains Elsewhere“
• “Grou.ps And Grouply Welcome Ning Refugees“
• “5 Places To Take Your Ning Network“
• “Alternatives to Ning” (Google doc)
• “Alternatives to Ning” (blog post by Phil Bradley)

No More Ning for Educators

Yesterday, Ning‘s new CEO made the following announcement in the creator‘s forum:

We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale. And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy.

I know I’m not the only educator who will have to start looking for a new application to use for classes and professional development.

(Thanks to Laura Nicosia for pointing out the announcement in Facebook.)

Presentation: “Integrating Social Networking & Web 2.0 Applications into eLearning”

Presentation:  “Integrating Social Networking & Web 2.0 Applications into eLearning“

My Ning Social Networks

I belong to the following Ning social networks that are related to my work (in addition to the one I use for my ENG 131 class at Red Rocks):

• NCTE Ning (National Council of Teachers of English)
• Sloan-C SL-NET (Second Life – Networking Education and Technology)
• Ning in Education
• College 2.0
• eTools and Tips for Educators
• RezEd
• Renaissance Island of Second Life
• RREADS (Red Rocks English ADjunctS)

I hadn’t realized there were so many.  I haven’t been active in any of them lately, but I hope to remedy that this summer.

Resources for Using Ning

Websites:

• About Ning
• Ning Help
• Ning Blog
• Ning on Twitter
• Crunchbase Ning Company Profile
• Everything Ning on Mashable

Books:

• Hernandez, Manny.  Ning for Dummies.   Hoboken, NJ:  For Dummies, 2009.

Articles:

• “7 Things You Should Know about Ning“
• “Is Ning The Next Facebook or MySpace?“

Videos:

• “What is Ning?“
• “Ning Social Networking Site“
• “Ning Create an Account“
• “ning tutorial1 getting started“
• “How to NING“
• “Do Your Own Ning Thing: Create Your Own Branded Social Network with Ning“
• “How to create a Free Social Network using Ning“
• “Changing themes & colors on your Ning profile“
• “Create Profile Picture on Ning“
• “Organizing page elements on Ning profile pages“
• “Add RSS Feed to Profile Page on Ning“
• “How to edit your Ning profile – V.001“
• “How to put your twitter on your ning profile page“

Social Network for English Adjuncts

I’ve been working on a Ning social network for adjuncts in the English Department at Red Rocks Community College.  I tried to find a video on YouTube that would show people how to join and set up their profiles, but all of the videos focused on actually creating the site.

New Addition to Recommended Reading List

I’ve added Ellyssa Kroski‘s Web 2.0 for Librarians and Information Professionals to my Recommended Reading list.  Even though it’s written for librarians, it’s a good introduction to web 2.0.  She has chapters on the following:

• web 2.0
• blogs
• RSS and newsreaders
• wikis
• social bookmarking
• photo sharing
• social cataloging
• video sharing
• personalized start pages
• social networking software
• vertical search engines
• social news
• answers technology
• virtual worlds
• productivity tools
• podcasting
• mashups

I do have a couple of objections to her classifications:  (1) She included Second Life in a book on “web 2.0.”  To access Second Life, you have to download their software; it cannot be accessed on the web (i.e., by using a browser).  Therefore, in my mind, it doesn’t belong in this book.  (2) She included Ning in a chapter on “Mashups” when it clearly fits under social networks.

Request for Participation from Sloan Consortium

Members of SL-NET and other educators using Second Life (SL) have been invited by the Sloan Consortium to participate in planning and developing their two new islands in SL.

The intial meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. SLT on Tues., Aug. 26, on Sloan Consortium 1 in SL.

For more information, go to the main page of SL-NET’s Ning social network.

SL-NET also has a mailing list and a group in SL:

Mailing List:

• To subscribe or unsubscribe and turn digest or vacation modes on and off, go to http://www.freelists.org/list/sl-net.
• To post on the mailing list, send an email to sl-net@freelists.org from the e-mail address you used when you subscribed.

SL Group:

• To join the SL-NET group in Second Life, use the Search function in SL to find the group, and then click on the Join button. There is no cost for joining.

More on Ning

As I mentioned before, I’m using a Ning social network for my hybrid technical writing class at Red Rocks. Each week the students have to do an online assignment, most of which will be in site, where they can post in forums or on their own blogs.

Their first assignment was to join the site, post an introduction, and respond two at least two other people’s instroductions.

In class yesterday, we talked about tools for technical writing, primarily rhetoric and technology. Here is their second assignment, to be done this week:

On the web, find a free or trial version of a software program or web-based service that may be used for creating documents, communicating, and/or collaborating (as discussed in Chapter 3 of the textbook). Test the program or service. On your “My Page” create a blog entry in which you tell where you found it (be sure to include a working link to the website), explain what it does, and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. Use the name of the program or service as the title of your blog post.

I’ve also joined another Ning social network. This one is called College 2.0, and it’s for people in higher ed who are interested in online education and Web 2.0.

Ning in Education

I’ve been really impressed with Ning social networks since I started using one for Sloan-C SL-NET. The primary advantages over Blackboard or Moodle are its public visibility, the ability of members to start forums and form groups, and the accessibility of RSS feeds. I’m using a Ning site for a hybrid technical writing class I’m teaching this fall. (It’s private for the obvious reasons.) I’ve also joined a social network for educators who are using Ning in education.