Social Networks For The Classroom

Jun 14 2008

Posted at 2:26 pm under web 2.0

There seems to be an “explosion” of new social networking applications that would let teachers create “walled gardens” where students can post their work and communicate easily with each other. When these tools are used in this way, Vicki Davis calls it “educational networking.” Steve Hargadon has also posted a list of many examples of using this type of social network by teachers and students.

We’ve been exploring some of them to see if one would be suitable for our international Sister Classes project. Right now Webjam seems to be one we might try. We might have used Ning, but it’s blocked by my School District’s content filters.

There are just so many, and I just don’t have it in me to investigate them all and develop a “The Best…” list for them.

I thought what I’d do is list them all here, along with links to posts in other blogs that describe them when available.

If you’re involved in education and are using one of them now, or have the time to investigate some, I’d like to invite you to write a short paragraph summarizing your thoughts about each one you want to write about, send them to me via a blog comment, and then I’ll put them all together for a future “The Best…” list.

Here they are:

Lefora (here’s a post from Mashable about it).

Soceeo

Neetz (Free Technology For Teachers has a post on it)

Let me know if I’ve missed other sites, too.

4 responses so far

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4 Responses to “Social Networks For The Classroom”

Nik Peacheyon 15 Jun 2008 at 7:34 am 1

Hi Larry,

I’ve been using Ning and have posted quite a long post with some considerations and recommendations / evaluation criteria when deciding whether to join a network and a step by step tutorial guide for creating your own network.

The link is here: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html

So far my experiences have been good with ning, but I’m keeping the network closed (invitation only) and it’s for a specific time limited project with teacher trainers rather than students, so …

Best

Nik Peachey
Emre Sokulluon 15 Jun 2008 at 9:52 pm 2

Hi Larry, this is Emre Sokullu from Grou.ps - glad that you found our site useful! Let us know if you need help setting up anything. Cheers,
Oliveron 16 Jun 2008 at 12:25 pm 3

Hi Larry,

thanks for listing mixxt in your overview. We have quite a few educational groups and communities (e.g. educamps, classrooms) on mixxt, mostly from Germany, but more and more from Poland, the UK …

Drop us a mail, if you have any questions or feedback. We are always glad to help. There is a blog module and quite a bit more up the pipeline…

Best wishes from Bonn,

Oliver from mixxt
vincenton 16 Jun 2008 at 2:38 pm 4

Hi Larry, great lineup of services (i’m part of the lefora team).

We have a few ‘edu’ forums on lefora, from book clubs at universities, to individual high school classes, to after school clubs. We’d like to hear some more feedback on how we can help in the edu space - as a forum is a great way to take classroom discussions ‘online’.

If you are anybody would like to work with us on putting together some best practices for education, we’d be happy to blog about it as well and provide this info to teachers looking to start a forum. Just send me an email at ‘vincent -at- lefora.com’