Ring a Ding Ning

I finally got off the schneid and activated my Blog Squad Ning. I put out a call for members to come to the aid of my American Government students to help them with the nuances of their web site construction. I was not prepared by the immediate response I received....from adults! Our associate principal came in twice to help students one-to-one. Our library technician came in last week and hopes to come back this week. The chairwoman of our Religious Studies Department is coming in on Thursday. This has been inspiring and fun....It's nice having another adult or two in the room because these tech adventures surface a variety of perplexing and humorous issues. The students have been quite appreciative too. The atmosphere has been charged, purposeful, and fun. It makes me feel really good about my school.

Speaking of Religious Studies, I would guess we may be one of the only schools around where this particular department is leading the way in terms of pushing the social media envelope. They have put together a cool Ning for inter-department communications and two of the teachers are experimenting very daringly with wikis and Diigo. They will be guest blogging in this space very soon.

Following on the heels of the Religious Studies bunch, the English Dept. initiated its own Ning and used the forum feature very effectively to discuss a new course proposal. I thought it was a good way to use the Ning and I suspect the discussion was more balanced and focused by virtue of taking place online.

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P.S. I've become addicted of late to sports gossip-- Not Tiger Woods, but the Detroit Tigers. I check the news aggregator mlbtradrumors.com several times a day as the general managers head into their trade meetings. Great time of year for hot stove trade speculation. The rumors and news tidbits absolutely pour into this site.

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"Door Bell" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Caro's Lines