Ningtastic

This week was solely dedicated to the creation and manipulation of my ning. I create the Ning for a simulation that we do in our class, and I was looking for a way for groups to work together and present their product, but also a way for communication to take place between groups in different classes. I'm banking on the Ning to provide this service to my students, and my initial feelings are positive that this will happen.

I did run into some roadblocks working with the Ning, but they were mostly surrounding my not knowing some of the Ning lingo and where certain tools were and how to manipulate them. The only real issue with the Ning was the text boxes that seem to be a casual mix of WYSIWYG and HTML code. It took me a long time to do and I wish the interface was more like the Blogger interface that I'm using right now. I think the product would be better in the end.

Today is the first day my students have checked in on the Ning and signed up and the initial reaction seems to be positive, although we have a fair amount of work before us in getting them to understand appropriate ways to interact with one another.

The last positive is the character I've developed as the Symaster, he is a strikingly handsome man around 60 years old with a Sean Connery resemblance. I think I'll really enjoy playing this character on the Ning and will have to create a personality to match his appearance. Right now the only adjective I can think of to describe the Symaster is salty. I think the Symaster will bring out the best in some of my students as well as frustrate some who have it too easy normally.