The Socially Networked Classroom: Chapters 5 & 6

 While reading through chapters 5 and 6 in the Socially Networked Classroom. My attention was drawn to the teacher who used Ning to create a private social network for her classroom, allowing students to post and comment on research they were working on as a group. I think that this is a fantastic idea. So, of course, I tried to go to Ning.com and create a new login and a new page to try this feature out. They wanted a lump sum of money to use their program after the free trial, which wasn't very long. So, I went and found one that is free to use, Tumblr. Tumblr was easy to use and figure out how to make a new community that was private. It did come with a warning that if I did make a private community, I could never make it public. That is probably a good thing when it comes to security issues, especially with students. I just thought it was interesting that it could never be made public. I made an initial welcoming post on the community page. There are links right on the home screen of the page that will allow users to add text, photos, quotes, links, chat, audio and videos. It is easy to look at other members and go to their blogs. I can envision this tool being used by an honor society like Phi Theta Kappa to have conversations about research projects and other important conversations that need collaboration. I am not sure how well it would work in my current teaching environment with special needs kids. It could be an interesting experiment.

I have added a link to the Tumblr community that I created for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to leave a post or a comment on a post.

Tumblr Private Community