Nings, Wikis, & Blogs…

As I’m facilitating a workshop today for the Sanford School Department entitled, “Nings, Wikis and Blogs, OH MY!”, I thought I’d post that information here as well.

Nings are tiny social networking sites, much like “Facebook”, that one creates and maintains. They are perfect for both work and school, but I could also imagine that families might like to have a Ning for a family reunion, wedding, etc. Go to http://www.ning.com/ to start or join a network.

Wikis are incredibly easy to use, and are most often used for collaboration. Many of us that started with wikis and blogs have moved over to nings, because they are all-inclusive. However, don’t discount the ease of use of wikis. Go play at http://www.wikispaces.com/ and see what you think.

Finally, a few words on blogs. You are reading one right now. A blog, or weblog, is basically a place where someone can share information, and possibly allow others to comment. I’m using WordPress with Intense Debate comments. Most users like to start out with https://www.blogger.com/start, which is part of the Google world. Very easy to create and maintain.

The Sanford School Department provides us with free use of http://teacherweb.com/, which is very inexpensive to anyone in education wanting a website. Teacherweb has an integrated blog software that amazed me with it’s ease of use. I’ll be recommending this blog to the teachers today. Teacherweb offers a free 30-day trial, so give it a shot this summer. The cost is only $39/year if you decide to keep it.

Send us links to your nings, wikis and blogs!