Building Communities: Wikis and Ning

Using wikis to manage student employees (or staff or volunteers): Heather Moss and Jennifer Fitch UMBC

Uses and benefits of their wiki
Created page within wiki for each staff member to track tasks/accomplishments; helpful when review time comes

Meets various learning styles

No longer necessary to update information in duplicate places (like email, shared drives, message boards, intranet) to get information out to staff

Enables dynamic documents that are hyperlinked and easily update-able

Saves staff time by consolidating training docs and procedures in a central location

Many wikis are flexible, easy to use with WYSIWYG editors

Nings: Susan Geiger, Moreau Catholic HS, and Karen Huffman, National Geographic Society

Susan Geiger, LibraryGrants

Nings are social networks that are often topic-oriented.

Infinitely customizable
Easy to add multimedia content
Can be invitation only
Enables commenting
One login will bring up posts to all the Nings you belong to

Ning is cloud tech; not hosted on your own servers

Good venue for threaded content with embedded multimedia content

Examples: Teacher Librarian Ning, Ning in Education, Learning Community at MCHS, Bay Area Independent School Librarians, Roselle Public Library Network


Karen Huffman, National Geographic, Web 2.0 Integrator/Consultant

Social network: Facebook vs. Ning

Examples: National Geographic Collectors Corner, Mistake Bank (anti-“best practices”), Blanketing DC with Love, Ning in Education

Personalize the experience: Importance of Play

IGoogle gadget & Facebook application to market initiatives

Benefits of Ning
Various security/contributor options
60 design templates
Add external widgets
Cross application integration
Personalized homepages for each person

Building and sustaining communities

Builders
Vision and goals
Creativity/persistence
Time/energy
Community drivers and feeders

Sustainers
Also, community drivers and feeders
Engage participants, personalize experiences, What’s in it for me?
Trust and shared ideals

More info can be found here.