Thing #22

Nings are a completely new thing for me. I spent alot of time on the teacher-librarian ning and the Texas school librarian ning trying to understand what they are all about. I have never investigated myspace or facebook either, so I went ahead and set up an account in facebook and found some local friends and invited them to be my friend. I also found a friend from college with an account. I think this is great since that takes us back to 1985! Facebook seems like a really neat site. It was easy to search for people and it did alot of the thinking for me--such as-once I found someone I knew, I could look at their friends and add people easier that way.
On ning, I think it could be a valuable tool for a discussion forum and in seeing what other people of like interests or professions are discovering in their fields. I might use it to find more 'good bloggers'. However, the postings seemed disorganized and confusing. If I was going to use a ning in the classroom or library, I think one could be set up for a discussion forum. I was trying to figure out if this would allow people to discuss 'live' rather than posting to a wiki or blog and waiting for a response? If you could actually have 'live' chats, it could be great for discussion groups for homework assigned topics or book discussions. If it can't be done 'live' it seems a blog or a wiki would be less complicated.
I really like facebook and will be investigating it further this week. (Especially since I found a good friend's 16 year old daughter has an account. I may have to hire her to tutor me on all the things you can do on it!)