Thursday, July 24, 2008

Thing #22: Nings

Several good points were made in the 7 things you should know about Nings. A Ning would be a great way to get students involved in assignments and projects with other students at any time 24/7. It allows instructors to be involved with their students in an environment which is relative and comfortable to a vast majority of our students (think MySpace or Facebook).



I looked at both Texas Librarian Ning and Texas School Librarian Ning. While the first was interesting I was drawn to Texas School Librarian because I am one. I was hooked after viewing one of the vidcasts created by a librarian celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday. It was so entertaining and the Ning allowed members to comment about the vidcast and the author to reply easily. As I read through comments from various individuals I did get a sense of community involvement. The Gadget add-ons looked interesting but you had to be a member to get into them.

TSL Ning could be used in many ways. As I mentioned above-vidcasts. It also allows for ideas to be shared among a large group of my peers. It is a fun and interesting way to learn about other librarians and how they get their students excited about reading and into the library. It also allows for discussion on employment, certification, etc.

As a librarian who has been involved with colleagues in developing our district library manual, this would be a great way to discuss manual ideas with peers around the state and to utilize that info into our manual.

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