Create your own social network 7 steps

Social networking is one of the key concepts that is driving Web 2.0 these days. With the opportunities social networks offer for collaboration and communication, this is certainly something we as educators should be thinking about being involved in.


In this tutorial I'd like to show you how to create your own social network on Ning, just by following 7 steps. I've published these as a downloadable PDF with screen shots, so that you can print them up and follow them / share them.

• 7 steps to creating a social network>> (944k pdf)
  

Perhaps though, more importantly it's worth thinking about some of the issues, and pros and cons surrounding the use of social networks.

Some advantages of creating your own network.

• Control over the content
  You can make sure nobody posts anything inappropriate or irrelevant.
  
• Control of who joins and the ability to block or ban people
  You can protect your members, ban anyone who doesn't behave or just limit membership to people you want to invite.
• Increased reach
  You can increase the reach of your F2F activities and get more people involved in the collaborative / collective development of your project.
  
• Good for your personal / career development
  You can learn a lot through being an administrator and develop some useful skills and knowledge.
  

Things to consider before you launch your network

• Closed (just people you invite) or Open (anyone who wants to join)
  I would advise starting off with just people you invite first to see how things take off. Deciding to make the network open could take a lot of consideration and demand much more 'policing' moderation from you.
  
• Do you have the time to manage the network?
  This is always a key question for teachers. Keeping the network active and up to date is going to take time. If you don't have the time / resources to put into it, best not to start.
  
• Do you have or can you find content to input to the network?
  Content is still the main motivation for teachers / students to get involved, even if it's just as stimulation for communication / collaborative work, you need to have something to offer and your members are going to need to 'get something' from visiting your network, or they won't be coming back.
  
• How / Will you be able to nurture collaboration between the members?
  Bit like the point above. Just providing a network isn't going to create collaboration. Ning is just a platform, you have to provide reasons, tasks, activities for members to collaborate on, or it just won't happen.
  
• What functionality (groups, forums, video and photo sharing) do you want to make available?
  Providing all of these on Ning is easy, but don't provide anything you can't use. If you provide the ability to share photos / videos, make sure you have something to share and reasons for sharing those things. You'll also need to think about who can share add and create. Are you going to keep complete control or share it with your members?
  
• Will you want to include advertising or ask it to be removed?
  If you are using Ning for educational purposes you can contact them and ask for advertising to be removed. You can also pay for a Ning platform and generate some money from the advertising yourself. I wouldn't recommend this as the amount may well not justify what you have to put up with from the advertisers. It's also better to get the advertising removed before you invite people to join, as some of the links can be inappropriate.
  
• What information will you want members to add when joining?
  You can decide what information members need to submit when they join and decide who sees the information. You find out a lot about them this way, but people can be put off by having to give away their information, so it could be best just to let them decide.
  
• How long will you want to keep the network live? (limited period or indefinitely)
  If you only intend to use the network for a specific time limited project it might be good to make this clear to your members, so they keep records of anything they develop within the network. Then when the project ends you can delete it with a clear conscience and keep the web tidy.

Looking at other networks
Before you start your own social network it's a good idea to have a look round at what others are doing. You might get some good ideas, see some potential pitfalls you want to avoid, or even decide someone already has your area covered and just decide to join them instead of recreating the wheel. Here a four networks for teachers that are well worth checking out.

• Mexico English Teachers' Alliance
  http://metamexico.ning.com/
• Teachers helping teachers
  http://teachershelpingteachers.ning.com/
• EFL Classroom 2.0
  http://eflclassroom.ning.com/
• Classroom 2.0
  http://www.classroom20.com/

Evaluation criteria
Deciding whether you want to join or recommend a network can be a tricky process, but as I've been looking around for ones I want to be part of I've built up a list of criteria that I find quite useful to have in the back of my mind.

• What features / functionality does the network offer? (Groups forums etc.)
  If there's no interaction, is it worth being a part of this network?
  
• Are the groups / forums active with a number of members exchanging information?
  Just because it has them doesn't mean they are being used. Have a look and make sure there is something there to learn and somebody there to learn with.
  
• Are these features being used? (If the network offers the use of photo or video sharing is this being used?)
  This is a good place to look to see what members are really sharing. Is there original content or is it all grabbed from YouTube / Flickr?
  
• Can you find out when the network was last active?
  Some networks are still online, but have died. Either the members or creator has lost interest. No point joining an inactive network.
  
• How many members does it have?
  Open networks that only have a small number of members, may be less worthwhile. Most networks need a critical mass to keep them moving, unless the members are very committed.
  
• Are any of the members’ photographs inappropriate?
  Many people join networks to pull traffic to their / unsuitable sites. A quick look at their avatar image could well give you a clue to which these are.
  
• Check out some of the member profiles. Does the profile disclose the member’s email address or other personal info that you wouldn't want to share?
  Make sure that the network isn't forcing you to disclose more information than you would feel happy with.
  
• Are there any ‘Google Ads’ on the site? Are these suitable or potentially offensive?
  Especially when recommending networks to others, it's good to check this first.
  
• Is there any interesting content on the site?
  Again, I still believe that content is king. Content + collaboration = learning! No content, don't join.
  
• Who is behind the network?
  Always wise to know who you are dealing with and sharing your information / knowledge with. Is it a group of like minded individuals, or a faceless company with dubious motivations?
  

Why create your own network for teachers?
Some suggestions:

• To support particular dispersed groups doing specific projects / training courses
  
• To record and share examples of practice and expertise specific to their context
• To help train and develop teachers in the use of ICT / Learning Technology

Why create your own network for students?
Some suggestions:

• Class research projects – create a network for your students based around a particular theme that they need to research.
• Inter-class project – create a network for sharing information with students in another school / country.
• Create a fan site with your students dedicated to a particular celebrity they like.
• Create a site to inform visitors about Morocco / your town or city, your culture etc.
• Create an online classroom and add links to materials, activities and tasks the students should do.
• Create a network to showcase students work and keep in contact with and involve parents.

Important

• You should not use Ning with students below the age of 13.
• Always protect your members’ privacy and make sure their email isn’t displayed and they don’t share addresses or telephone numbers with people.

Well if after all this you are still interested in creating your own network, here are the 7 steps again:

• 7 steps to creating a social network>> (944k pdf)

I've created one myself for a training course for teachers that I'm involved with. Personally I've found it really valuable so far.
For more opinions and to find out about alternative platforms, visit Larry Ferlazzo's blog post on Social Networks for the Classroom

Good luck with your networking and please do use the comments below to share your experience of using social networks.

Best

Nik Peachey

IATEFL Online Conference 2008

Well apologies to any regular visitors who have noticed the lack of activity her over the last week. This is mainly because my time over the next couple of weeks is being consumed by one of the biggest meetings of English language teachers in the World. The IATEFL annual conference.


I've been working as part of the online editorial team for the event and there are now some very active, discussion forums going on a whole range of ELT related subjects. Over the next week, the face to face event will begin and when it does we hope to be broadcasting and archiving a whole range of the live events including video and audio of interviews, plenaries and workshops.

So if you don't have the time and money to get along to Exeter UK from now until 11th April, then come along and sign on for the free online conference and get the opportunity to share experiences with teachers from all over the world.

Come and join us at: http://exeteronline.britishcouncil.org/

And if anyone is going along to the face to face event.

Hope to see you there.

best

Nik

Creating a mobile phone website

With the growth in interest in mobile and handheld learning, I thought I’d investigate one of the many new Web 2.0 type start ups that are offering free (at the moment at least) services for setting up websites and web based communities to be accessed on mobile phones and other mobile devices.

The one I’ve started with is a service called Winksite. On the home page of their website the company claims that, “Winksite makes it easy to publish mobile websites and communities that can be viewed worldwide on any phone.” So I thought I would try to set up my own site as an extension of this blog.

What’s good about it
I was actually quite impressed at just how easy it is and at the number of features on offer. Once you have registered, Winksite offers users the opportunity to set up as many as 5 websites for mobile devices. Each site can have a range of features that you can select and edit from a fairly easy to use web based interface. Some of the possible features for your mobile website include:

• Announcements
• Blog entries
• Journal entries
• Field reports
• Profile information
• User surveys
• Chat rooms
• Forums
• Feed syndication
• Plus a few others

I spent about an hour on Winksite, by which time I had;

• set up my mobile site
• added my profile
• personalised the look of the site
• created a couple of surveys
• added chat and a forum
• posted a blog entry and an announcement.

Once you’ve created your site there is also a tool that allows you to import email addresses from your address book to send out invitations to join, so you can quite easily get people onto your site and publisise it to your friends.

The sites that Winksite creates comply to all the established standards for mobile site, so that’s great too and also means that the site can be accessed through other mobile devices. I use an Opera browser on my Nintendo DS Lite as a kind of wireless palmtop as I roam around the house and garden, so to be able to access the site on that for me is really a great bonus.

• Here’s a movie showing what my site should look like on a mobile phone.
  Winksite demo
  
• Here’s another movie showing how to create your own site
  Tutorial movie 1
  
• An this movie shows how you edit and change the site
  Tutorial movie 2
  
• You can try the live site on your PC
  Interact with the live Winksite

The Featured books section is also interesting as it provides a way to access books on your phone, page by page and chapter by chapter, as they are written. This also enables you to interact with the writer as the book is written and discuss various elements through the forums and surveys.

What’s not so good about it
From the Winksite homepage you can also have a look around at the other sites that are being created. This isn’t so impressive, as it seems that lots of people are interested in finding out how this works etc, but it’s hard to find any sites that have more than one or two members signed up, and not many have much content added. That isn’t a criticism of the tool though, I think it’s just that the audience / market for mobile web content is still quite new and there is obviously huge potential here. The makers have also tried to steer you towards the best content by adding an Editor's choice section, as well as having a regular Featured site.

Unless you have a good contract with your phone provider that gives you plenty of web access included, accessing the site could be expensive. Having said this the pages the site produce are all pretty lite and should load pretty quickly, so comparatively, this won't be such an expensive site to access.

How to use it with my students
This is a difficult one. If you have students who come to class regularly, are they really going to want to use a mobile phone based web community to interact with their teacher and the other students from the class? I think probably not. There is also the problem that some students may well not have phones that are capable of browsing websites.

• If however you have distance or online classes then I could see the possible potential of using a tool like this in conjunction with other web based materials to support students and make it easier for students to work together and keep in touch with you.
• The site could be useful for a class project. Get the students to decide on issues that they feel are important to them, then set up the site based around one of these issues and try to get students from other classes or schools exchanging opinions and polling each other.
• You could set up polls and surveys on Winksite as a form of action research to get anonymous feedback from students and create dialogue with them about some of the methods you’re using in class.
• You could get students to create their own site as a form of learner diary.
• You could set up a site to keep in contact with the parents of your students and help to keep them informed about what’s going on with their children and any events etc that are happening at the school. You could even post your homework assignments on the site so that the parents check to see that their children are doing the work you set them.
• You could try to get students to collaboratively write a book/ story from their phone or computer. Decide on the topic first and then ask students to take it in turns to add a page each. Others could interact and vote on what they would like to happen next using the survey feature.
  

Conclusion
If you want a multi-featured mobile phone website with lots of interactive features, and you don’t want to pay anything for it, this is a great place to start. The feature set is rich and varied and the interface seems to be pretty easy to use. It’s difficult to say though at the moment if having a website that is accessed though a mobile phone has any really significant advantages over one that is purely accessed through a computer. I suppose a lot depends on how much change there is in coming months / years regarding access the web through mobile phones. The popularity of Apple’s new I-phone certainly points towards, this happening, but looking at the costs involved at present, it’s still going to be a while before this kind of access is available to many in poorer countries.

If you try out this tool or have tried similar one please leave a comment.

Best

Nik

Creating an Online Classroom

The Nicenet Classroom Assistant is a really useful tool which enables teachers to very quickly and simply create their own virtual learning environment. I’ve been using this with various classes and groups of teachers for the last 7 or 8 years and it has remained reliable, stable, safe and free.


Features
The VLE it creates has a number of useful features.

• A messaging function which allows registered users to send personal or group messages to others registered on the VLE (this can be configured to forward messages on to email addresses if the user so chooses)
• A conferencing function. This acts like a bulletin board where threaded discussions can be created around tasks or topics.
• A link sharing resources where the tutor and / or users can post and share and annotate links to external sites. This can help to focus your students’ use of web resources.
• Document publishing. This can be used by either tutor, to publish course materials, or students to publish their work.
• The tutor has access to administrative functions that will allow them to configure the degree control they retain over these features.
• The tutor can also set up and schedule tasks for their students to complete within specified deadlines.
  

Why I like it
This is a really good simple and free solution for any teacher that wants to start exploring online or blended learning. It’s very safe as only registered users have access. Users can only add text, as it doesn’t support picture formats. It enables teachers to create a forum for online communication even for younger learners who don’t have access to things like email.

Because the VLE is text only, it makes it very quick to move around within the environment even if users are accessing the site through a dial-up connection.

The features of the site are integrated so you can set up a task within the conferencing section, provide the resources within the link sharing section and get students to submit completed work and publish it within the document sharing section.

Tutorials
Here are some tutorial sheets showing you how to create your own classroom and manipulate the various features. These tutorials were developed for a workshop presentation that I delivered in Cordoba Argentina. This wokshop was sponsored by the British Coucnil in Argentina

• How to create your Nicenet classroom (319Kb pdf)
  
• How to add and share links (169Kb pdf)
  
• How to use the messaging feature (203Kb pdf)
  
• How to create conferencing topics (300Kb pdf)
  
• How to get you students registered (247Kb pdf)
  

I hope you find this tool as useful as I have. Good luck with your online teaching.

Nik Peachey