May 12 2009
Developing the school librarians’ Ning
As we have recently had a lot of new members over on the Ning, I just want to write something more about it. First of all, it has not been made as a result of recent controversies over on SLN, but was created by Yin Doran (a.k.a. Elfin) after the fantastic online course that I blogged about ealier in the year.
I want to make this clear, because Yin has been generous enough to make me a fellow administrator, to help her with the Ning. My role, as I see it, is to support the development of it and assist new members to the Ning, if I can.
Membership
The Ning is owned by its members and they set the terms of who can join. All that has been said so far is that we do not want spammers or commercial members, so Yin and I ask prospective members to tell us something about themselves before we “approve” membership.
If anyone were to ask to join who we weren’t sure about, we would then ask the existing members to decide. We are not trying to be an elitist or exclusive club, but just protecting the Ning from spammers in the main.
Activities
Ning allows us to add discussions, groups and resources to be shared with members. Again, the entire membership will decide what they want on the Ning, but the general feeling so far is that, without being boring and humourless, we want to discuss and share things that will help us learn and develop as librarians.
So far, we have shared quite a lot of helpful things, such as Web2.0 tools, books that we enjoy, links with university libraries and book trailers. Members have uploaded photos and videos.
The US TeacherLibrarian Ning is a great example to follow – let’s enjoy learning together!
Spot on! This is exactly what I am hoping for from the Ning.
Thanks, Lynne. We have had a big increase in membership over the last few days (wonder why!!). Some people seem to think it is mine – but I am just setting the record straight here. It was a great idea of Yin’s and I think it could develop nicely if we all contribute.